A Soldier of the Legion Read online

  CHAPTER X

  THE VOICE OF THE LEGION

  It was all far worse even than Max had expected; and the next few dayswere a nightmare. The resemblance between the girl and her mother--oncehis mother, whom he had as a boy adored--made the effect more gruesome.

  Josephine Delatour was coarse minded and sly, inordinately vain, caringfor nothing in life except the admiration of such men as she had met andmistaken for gentlemen. Her way of receiving the news of her change offortune disgusted Max, sickened him so utterly that he could not bear tothink of her reigning in Jack Doran's house. She was torn betweenpleasure in the prospect of being rich, and suspicious that there was aplot to kidnap her, like the heroine of a sensational novel. She did notwant to go to America. She wanted to stay in Sidi-bel-Abbes and triumphover all the women who had snubbed her. She boasted of her admirers, andhinted that even without money she could marry any one of a dozen youngofficers. But the one for whom she seemed really to care--if it were inher to care for any one except herself--was the namesake of whom Max hadheard laughing hints.

  At the time it had not occurred to him that the name of the alleged"cousin" must be Delatour; but so it was though the dark young man withthe waxed moustache spelled his name differently, in the morearistocratic way, with three syllables. When Josephine boasted that,though he was from a great family, with a castle on the River Loire, hecalled himself her cousin, Max realized that the Lieutenant of Spahismust be a son or nephew of the de la Tour from whom Rose and Jack hadtaken the chateau. So far, however, was Max Doran from being elated bythis tie of blood, that he mentally dubbed his relative a cad. It wasall he could do to persuade Josephine not to tell Raoul de la Tour thatshe had come into money, and a name as aristocratic as his own--in fact,that she was qualifying as a heroine of romance. Only by appealing tothe crude sense of drama the girl had in her could she be prevented fromstupidly throwing out bait to fortune-hunters. But having wired again toEdwin Reeves, and hearing that Mrs. Reeves, already in Paris, hadstarted for Algiers, a plan occurred to Max. He advised Josephine, ifshe thought that de la Tour cared for her, to tell him that she wasgiving up work in the Hotel Splendide; also that she was leavingSidi-bel-Abbes forever; and then see what he would say. What he did saywas such a blow to the girl's vanity that, when she was sure he had nointention of marrying a poor secretary, she flung the dazzling truth athis face. Repentant, he tried to turn his late insults into honestlovemaking; but the temper of the lynx was roused. Never having deeplyloved the man, she took pleasure in using her claws on him. In tauntinghim with what he might have had, however, she let the identity of thenewsbringer leak out.

  De la Tour then warned her passionately against _le jeune aventurierAmericain_, and almost frightened the girl into disbelieving the wholestory. But proofs were forthcoming, and with the landlord's wife, whoenjoyed sharing a borrowed halo, Josephine Delatour--or JosephineDoran--went to Algiers to await Mrs. Reeves's arrival. Meanwhile, withthe money she procured from Max, the girl planned to buy herself atrousseau, and eventually departed, rejoicing in her lover'sdiscomfiture. Whether or no this attitude were safe with such a manremained to be seen. As for Max--the messenger who had brought thetidings--since he showed no desire to flirt with her, Josephine saw noreason to be interested in him. Besides, she could hardly believe thathe was not somehow to blame for having kept what ought to have been hersfor his own all these years. She had not loved her supposed father andmother, who had interfered with her pleasure, disapproving of what theycalled her extravagance and frivolity.... There was no grief to the girlin learning that the Delatours were not her parents.

  Nor did it seem to Josephine that gratitude was due Max for resigning inher favour. She was greedily ready to grab everything, without thanks,just as her lynx-prototype would snatch a piece of meat, if it could getit, from another lynx. She grudged the years of luxury and pleasurewhich she ought to have had; and could she have realized that she hadmade of Lieutenant de la Tour an enemy for Max Doran, she would havebeen glad. It was right that two men should quarrel over a woman.

  While he was arranging Josephine's affairs, Max saw nothing of Sandaand Colonel DeLisle. He had thought it best to take up his quarters atanother hotel, and his only communication with them was by letter. Hewrote Sanda that when his business was finished he would make up hismind what to do; but in any case he hoped that he might be allowed tobid her and Colonel DeLisle farewell. In answer, came an invitation fromthe Colonel to see the Salle d'Honneur of the Legion, the famous gallerywhere records of its heroes were kept. "That is," (Sanda said, writingfor her father) "if you are interested in the Legion."

  "If he were interested in the Legion!" Already he was obsessed bythoughts of it. Sidi-bel-Abbes, which at first had struck him as being adull provincial town, now seemed the only place where he could havelived through his dark hours. Elsewhere he would have felt surrounded bya gay and happy world in which a man with his back to the wall had noplace. Here at Sidi-bel-Abbes was the home of men with their backs tothe wall. The very town itself had been created by such men, and forthem. For generations desperate men, sad men, starving men, of allcountries--men who had lost everything but life and strength--had beenturning their faces toward Sidi-bel-Abbes, their sole luggage the secretsorrow which, once the _Legion_ had taken them, was no one's businessbut their own.

  Max Doran could not go into the street without meeting at least a dozenmen in the Legion's uniform, who seemed akin to him because of the lookin their eyes; the look of those cut off from what had once meant lifeand love. What they were enduring was unknown to him, but he was somehowat home among them. And the day Josephine went away, before he had yetmade up his mind to the next step, for the first time he heard the musicof the Legion's band.

  It was in the afternoon, and he had strolled outside the Porte deTlemcen into the public gardens for the music, only because he had anhour to pass before his appointment in the Salle d'Honneur. In winterthe band played in the Place Carnot, but on this soft day of earlyspring the concert was announced for the gardens beloved by the peopleof Sidi-bel-Abbes. They were beautiful, but to Max it seemed the beautyof sadness; and even there, outside the wall which dead Legionnaires hadbuilt, everything spoke of the Legion. Men of the Legion had plantedmany of the tall trees of the cloistral avenue, whose columnar trunkswere darkly draped with ivy. Men of the Legion swept dead leaves fromthe paths, as they swept away old memories. Men of the Legion walked inthe gray shadow of the planes, as they walked in the shadows of life.Men of the Legion rested on the rough wooden benches, staring absentlyat mourning plumes of cypresses, or white waterfalls that fleeted bylike lost opportunities. Yes, despite the flowers in the myrtle bordersit was a place of sadness, and of a mournful silence until the musiciansbrought their instruments into the curious bandstand formed of growingtrees. Then it seemed to Max that he heard the Legion speak in a greatand wonderful voice.

  As by studying a hive one feels the mysterious governing spirit, so hefelt the spirit of the Legion in its music, its restlessness, itslongings, its passions, and its ambitions, uttered and cried to heavenin prayers and curses. As individuals the men were dumb, guarding theirsecrets, striving to forget; and it was as if this smothered fire,seeking outlet, had sprung from heart to heart, kindling and massing alltogether in a vast, white-hot furnace. The music opened the doors ofthis furnace, and the flames roared upward to the sky. In the dazzlinglight of that strange fire, secrets could be read, if the eyes that sawwere not blinded. Bitterness and joy were there to see, and the blendingof all passions through which men ruin their lives, and need to remaketheir souls. Yes, that was the Legion's call. Men came to it, in thehope of remaking their souls. With his own drowned in the music of painand regeneration, Max went to the Salle d'Honneur to meet ColonelDeLisle.

  He knew where to find it, next to the barracks; a small, low building ofthe same dull yellow, set back in a little garden with a few palms andflowerbeds. Inside the gate was a red, blue, and white sentry box. ButMax entered unchallenged, bec
ause at the door of the house stood thecolonel, who came down a step to meet him. "Monsieur Doran!" heexclaimed cordially, holding out his hand.

  "Will you still offer me your hand, sir," Max asked wistfully, though hesmiled, "even if I've no name any more, and no country that I can claim?Mademoiselle DeLisle has told you?"

  "She has told me," echoed the elder man, shaking the younger's hand withextra warmth. "I congratulate you on the chance of making a name foryourself. I think from what I hear, and can judge, that you will do so,in whatever path you choose. Have you chosen yet?"

  "Not yet," Max confessed. "Neither a name nor the way to make it. Northe country most likely to make it in."

  "As for that"--and Colonel DeLisle smiled--"we of the Legion are moreused to men without names and without countries than to those who havethem. Not that your case is allied to theirs. Shall we go in? I want tothank you, as I've not been able to do yet, for your chivalrousbehaviour to my daughter. She has told me all about that, too--_all_.And I had a feeling that this room, in which our Legion commemorateshonourable deeds, would be a place where you and I might talk."

  As he spoke he led Max into a short corridor, at the end of which hung alarge frame containing portraits and many names of men and battles withthe crest of _la Legion Etrangere_ at the top. Pushing open a door atthe right, DeLisle made way for his guest. "Here are all the relics thatare to us men of the First Regiment most sacred," he said. And as hepassed in, he saluted a flag preciously guarded in a long glass case:the flag of the regiment decorated with the Cross of the Legion ofHonour on an historic occasion of great bravery. An answering thrillshot through Max's veins, for in them ran soldier blood. Involuntarilyhe, too, saluted the flag and its cross. Colonel DeLisle gave him aquick look, but made no comment.

  Two out of the four walls were covered with portraits of men in uniformsancient and modern; paintings, engravings, photographs; and thedecorations were strange weapons, and torn, faded banners which hadhelped the Legion to make history. There were drums and weird idols,too, and monstrous masks and great fans from Tonkin and Madagascar, andrelics of fighting in Mexico. On the long table lay albums ofphotographs, and upon either side were ranged chairs as if for officersto sit in council.

  "Whenever we wish to do a guest honour, we bring him here," said thecolonel. "We are not rich, and have nothing better to offer; except,perhaps, our music."

  "I have already heard the music," answered Max. "I shall never forgetit. And I shall never forget this room."

  "Such music wakes the hearts of men, and helps inspire them to heroicacts like these." Colonel DeLisle waved his hand toward some of thepictures which showed soldiers fighting the Legion's most historicbattles. "I am rather proud of our music and our men. This room, too,and the things in it--most of all the flag. My daughter has spent hoursin the Salle d'Honneur looking over our records. Presently she will joinus. But I wanted to thank you before she came. Corisande is a child,knowing little of the world and its ways. Some men in your place wouldhave misunderstood her--in the unusual circumstances. But you did not.You proved yourself a friend in need for my little girl, on her strangejourney to me. I wish in return there might be some way in which I couldshow myself a friend to you. Can you think of any such way?"

  The voice was earnest and very kind. A great reaction from his firstprejudice against the speaker swept over Max. Beneath this one voicewhich questioned him and waited for an answer, he heard as a deep,thrilling undertone the voice of the Legion which had called to himthrough the music to come and share its bath of fire. A sudden purposeawoke in Max Doran, and he knew then that it had been in the backgroundof his mind for days, waiting for some word to wake it. Now the word hadcome. All his blood seemed to rush from heart to head, and he grewgiddy: yet he spoke steadily enough.

  "I have thought of a way, Colonel DeLisle!"

  "I am glad. You have only to tell me."

  "Accept me as one of your men. Let me join the Legion."

  "Mon Dieu!" The Legion's colonel was taken completely by surprise. Maxhad thought he might perhaps have expected the request, but evidently itwas not so. The dapper little figure straightened itself. And from hisplace beside his adored flag, Colonel DeLisle gazed across to the otherside where, close also to the flag, stood the young man he had wished toserve. Max met his eyes, flushed and eager and, it seemed, patheticallyyoung. There was dead silence for an instant. Then DeLisle spoke in achanged tone: "Do you mean this? Have you thought of what you aresaying?"

  "I do mean it," Max replied. "I believe I have thought of it ever sinceI saw those men of all countries getting out of the train to join theLegion. I felt the call they had felt. But it is stronger to-day. I knownow what I want. In the Salle D'Honneur of the Legion I decide on mycareer."

  "Decide!" the other repeated. "No, not that, yet! You have got this ideainto your head because you are romantic. You think you are ruined andthat the future doesn't matter. You will find it does. This is no placefor poetry and romance--my God, no! It's a fiery furnace. In barracks weshould burn the romance out of you in twenty-four hours."

  "If I've got more in me than any man who loves adventure ought to have,then I want it burned out," said Max.

  "Adventures will cost you less elsewhere," almost sneered DeLisle.

  "I don't ask to get them cheap," Max still insisted. "Though I've gotnothing to pay with, except myself, my blood, and flesh, and muscles."

  "That's good coin," exclaimed the elder, warming again. "Yet we can'ttake it. You may think you know what you mean. But you don't know whatthe Legion means. I do. I've had nearly twenty years of it."

  "You love it?"

  "Yes, it is my life. But--I have to remind you, I entered it as anofficer. There is all the difference."

  "At least I should be a soldier. I know what a soldier's hardships are."

  "Ah, not in the Legion!"

  "It can't kill me."

  "It might."

  "Let it, then. I'll die learning to be a man."

  DeLisle looked at his companion intently. "I think," he said, "you are aman."

  "No, sir, I'm not," Max contradicted him abruptly. "I used to hope Imight pass muster as men go. But these last days I've been findingmyself out. I've been down in hell, and I shouldn't have got there if Iwere a man. I'm a self-indulgent, pining, and whining boy, thinking ofnothing but myself, and not knowing whether I've done right or wrong. Ifthe Legion can't teach me what's white and what's black, nothing can."

  The colonel of the Legion laughed a queer, short laugh. "That is true,"he said. "I take back those words of mine about poetry and romance.You've got the right point of view, after all. And you are the kind ofman the Legion wants, the born soldier, lover of adventure foradventure's sake. You would come to us not because you have anything tohide, or because you prefer barracks in France to prison at home, orbecause some woman has thrown you over," (just there his keen eyes sawthe young man wince, and he hurried on without a pause) "but becausewe've made some history, we of the Legion, and you would like a chanceto make some for yourself, under this"--and he pointed to the flag whosefolds hung between them--"_Valeur et Discipline!_ That's the Legion'smotto, for the Legion itself must be _Dieu et Patrie_ for most of itssons. I've done my duty as a friend in warning you to go where life iseasier. As colonel of the First Regiment, I welcome you, if yousincerely wish to come into the Legion. Only----"

  "Only what, sir?"

  "My daughter! She wanted me to help you. She'll think I've hindered,instead."

  "No, Colonel. She hoped I'd join the Legion."

  DeLisle looked surprised. "What reason have you for supposing that?"

  "Interpreting a thing she said, or, rather, a thing she wanted to say,but was afraid to say for fear I might blame her some day in thefuture."

  "She, knowing nothing of the Legion, recommended you to join? That isstrange."

  "She knew a little of me and my circumstances. I'd been a soldier, andthere seemed only one convenient way for a man without a name or countr
yto start and become a soldier again. Miss DeLisle saw that."

  "You're talking of me?" inquired Sanda's voice at the half-open door.Both men sprang to open it for her. As she came into the Salled'Honneur, she seemed to bring with her into this room, sacred to deadheroes of all lands, the sweetness of spring flowers to lay on distantgraves. And as she stepped over the threshold, like a young soldier shesaluted the flag.

  "I have just said to Colonel DeLisle that you would approve of myjoining the Legion," Max explained. "Have I told him the truth?"

  The girl looked anxiously from one man to the other. She was rather paleand subdued, as if life pressed hardly even upon her. "You guessed whatI wouldn't let myself say in the train the other day!" she exclaimed."But--you _haven't_ joined, have you?"

  "Not yet, or I shouldn't be here. The Salle d'Honneur is for commonsoldiers only when they're dead, I presume."

  "But you could become an officer some day, couldn't he, father?"

  "Yes," replied Colonel DeLisle. "Every soldier of the Legion has hischance. And our friend is French, I think, from what you've told me ofhis confidences to you. That gives an extra chance to rise.France--rightly or wrongly, but like all mothers--favours her own sons.Besides, he has been a soldier, which puts him at once ahead of theothers."

  "I shouldn't trade on that! I'd rather begin on a level with other men,not ahead of them," Max said hastily. "My object would be not to teach,but to learn--to cure myself of my faults----"

  The colonel drew a deep breath, like a sigh. "We do cure men sometimes,men far more desperate, men with souls far more sick than yours. There'sthat to be said for us."

  "His soul isn't sick at all!" Sanda cried out, in defence of her friend.

  "Perhaps he thinks it is." Colonel DeLisle looked at Max as he hadlooked after those chance words of his about a woman.

  "_Do_ you think that, Mr. Doran?" the girl questioned incredulously. "Ishall be disappointed if you do."

  "Don't be disappointed. I do not think my soul is sick. I want to seehow strong it can be, and my body, too. But you mustn't call me 'Mr.Doran' now, please. It isn't my name any more. Colonel DeLisle, may Iask your daughter to choose a name for a new soldier of the Legion? Itwill be the last favour, for I understand perfectly that after I'vejoined the regiment, as a private soldier, you can be my friends only atheart. Socially, all intercourse must end."

  "Oh, no, it wouldn't be so," Sanda cried out impulsively, though the oldofficer was silent. "It wouldn't, if I were not going away."

  "You are going away?" Max was conscious of a faint chill. He would havefound some comfort in the thought that his brave little travellingcompanion was near, even though he seldom saw and never spoke to her.

  "Not home to the aunts! I told you I'd never go back to live with them,and my father wouldn't send me. But there's to be a long march---- Oh,have I said what I oughtn't? Why? Since he _must_ know if he joins?Anyhow, I can't stay here many days longer--I mean, for the present. I'mto be sent to a wonderful place. It will be a great romance."

  "Sanda, it is irrelevant to talk of that now," Colonel DeLisle remindedhis daughter.

  "Forgive me! I forgot, father. May I--name the new soldier, and wish himjoy?"

  DeLisle laughed rather bitterly. "'Joy' isn't precisely the word. If hehoped for it, he would soon be disillusioned. You may give him a name,if he wishes it. But let me also give him a few words of advice.Monsieur Doran----"

  "St. George!" broke in Sanda. "That is to be his name. I christen him,close to the flag. Soldier, saint, slayer of dragons." She did not add"my patron saint," but Max remembered, and was grateful.

  "Soldier Saint George, then," DeLisle began again, smiling, "this is myadvice as your friend and well-wisher: again, I say, why should you nottake advantages you have fairly earned? My men are wonderful soldiers. Isuppose in the world there can be none braver, few so brave; for theynearly all come to heal or hide some secret wound that makes themdesperate or careless of life. They are glorious soldiers, theseforeigners of ours! But at the beginning you will see them at theirworst in the dulness of barrack life. There are all sorts andconditions, from the lowest to the highest. You may happen to be amongsome of the lowest. Why not start where you are entitled to start? When,in being recruited, you are asked to state your profession, you're atliberty to say what you choose. No statement as to name, age, country,or occupation is disputed in the Legion. But once more, let me adviseyou, if you write yourself down "Soldier," things can be madecomparatively easy for you."

  "I thank you, sir, and I will take your advice in everything else. But Idon't want things made easy."

  "You may regret your obstinacy."

  "Oh, father," pleaded Sanda, "wouldn't you be the very one to do thesame thing?"

  "In his place," said Colonel DeLisle, shrugging his shoulders, "Isuppose I should do what he does. What _I_ might do, isn't the question,however. But I've said enough.... Now I have to get back to barracks.For you, Sanda, this must be 'good-bye,' I fear, to the friend of yourjourney."

  "My friend for always," the girl amended, holding out her hand to Max."And I'd rather say 'Au revoir' than 'Good-bye'; we shall meetagain--away in the desert, perhaps."

  She caught her father's warning eye and stopped. "Good-bye,then--Soldier of the Legion."

  "If he doesn't change his mind," muttered DeLisle. "There's still time."

  Max looked from the girl to the flag in its glass case.

  "I shall not change my mind," he said.