SOWING GLORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 21062, 22 December 1931, Page 20

SOWING GLORY.

By P. C. WREN. Author of "The Young Stager." "Dew and Mildew," "Father Gregory, " The Wages of Virtue." " Beau Ideal," etc., etc.

A MOST ENTERTAINING AND INTERESTING SERIAL.

BOOK 11. CHAPTER lll.—(Continued). " Boulanger was tried for behaviour unbecoming (o a non-commissioned officer of the Legion, and, in view of his splendid record and unblemished character, the case was treated as one "of ' cafard,' and he received the. mild sentence of severe reprimand and reduction to the rank of corporal. " The very next night that he was out, ho got drunk on his own accord, and, lurching in at the gates, assaulted a corporal for not saluting him. He then struck the sergeant of the guard in the face, and began to rave and shout, kick and struggle, like—what lie then undoubtedly was—a lunatic. " This time the sentence was sharper, lie was reduced not only to the ranks, but to the rank of a second-class ' legionnaire,' and given fifty-two days' imprisonment.

" Not his wife ?" said I

" Ho came out from that sentence a thin, bent, vellow-faced man, and as changed in mind and spirit as he was in body. As he recovered some of his former strength, he bore himself well, and became the model soldier of the second class. But he scarcely ever spoke, arid he seemed at times to have been stricken dumb. " But he did his duty perfectly, and the sergeants who had been his friends, and the corporals who had feared and admired him, now respected his misery. And this was rendered easier by his irreproachable conduct. " Now you, ' mes amis',' may think he had been through his worst hell, but I tell you, I who know, that it was only just beginning.

" Who but the man who has been through it can understand, can imagine, what it is to servo in hell after ruling in heaven, for that is the comparative difference. . . . Who, but the man that lias

been through it, can grasp what it means to be ordered instead of ordering; to be shouted at instead of shouting; to perform the most menial and filthy fatigues, instead of directing somebody else to see that they are dono ... to sweep the room; to peel potatoes; to fetch and carry at the double; to be for guard, and go on sentry; to drill with recruits; and to be of actually lower rank than the first-class soldiers who have, for years, been one's respectful and obedient, servants, leapt at one's word, and trembled at one's frown. . . . To live with them night and day; their butt, their sport, the overthrown and fallen god; to be ridiculed and rolled in the mud.

" That was his real hell, ' mes amis.' That life as a soldier of the second class, among the men whom he had ruled as a despot. "A soldier of the second class! He who had for years been saluted by such, as well as by soldiers of the first class, and by Corporal. ... You cannot imagine his life. . . . But I can." " Having to herd with swine like us ?" interrupted Matthieu le Maquerau. " Exactly. Thank you. Having to herd with swine like you. You personally, I mean.

" And without such alleviation as a sergeant's pay could bring. We know how much wine a halfpenny a day brings. And add to his other miseries the thought that he had for ever lost his sergeant's pension; lost it on the very eve of gaining it—a pension earned by such bitter years of sweat and blood—small enough, God knows, but sufficient to keep him from starvation in his old age.

" Do you wonder (hat he brooded, that broken man, who had lost wife, children, position, pension, everything? " Captain Lamartine, who had known him for years, and thought highly of him, was desolated. Time after time, he sent for him and bade him pull himself together, make an effort; and try, at any rate, to become a soldier of the first class. There was neither time nor hope for him to regain his rank of sergeant. " On the last occasion that the captain sent for him, he wished to ask a favour. He promised that if the captain would grant it, he would never, never again >give him cause for complaint and dissatisfaction. What ho wanted was an all-night pass for the night of November the first. . . . That had been his

wedding-day, and lie wished, from a certain spot, to see the sun rise 011 that day." " ' I have a rendezvous witli, Death,' " murmured Terence Hogan.

" I know all this because okl Frontrelles, the orderly-clerk, was present, and told me all about it.

" And then, ' mes amis,' it was I, I who speak, Aristide Cocteau, who could tell them all about it.

" Strange that it was reserved for me —myself destined to be a sergeant reduced lo llie ranks—to be the first to make tiie discovery. " That morning at six o'clock I had to go, as usual, to my captain's house, and on the way along the ramparts I met 'ce pauvre ' Boulanger—and apparently he was Sergeant Boulanger once again.

" lie was in full uniform, his medals and decorations flashing and gleaming in the rays of the rising sun, gold sergeant's chevrons pinned to his sleeves, his ' kepi ' carefully adjusted as a smart soldier should wear it, slightly toward the left ear, somewhat pulled down in the front and the peak well bent in the middle. The only thing wrong about his dress was that he was only wearing one puttee. " The other was partly about his neck and partly about the branch of the tree from which he had lianged himself. "He had preferred to die as a sergeant than to live as a ' legionnaire.' " ' Chacun a son gout.' Me, 1 would rather live as a ' legionnaire' than die a sergeant. " I stood and stared iri horror. There was nothing to bo done for Boulanger. He must have been dead for quite an hour. Doubtless ho had died at, sunrise, and had I been able to get his body down it would probably have cost me quite a lot of time and trouble to prove that I hadn't murdered him.

However, one or two people came along; an Arab, a Jew, a Spaniard, until there was a small crowd staring at what had been the finest sergeant in the Foreign Legion. 1 sent a boy running for the police. The sooner this poor fellow ceased to lie tiie centre of a gaping crowd the better I should feel. And i needed to feel better —for the sight of poor Boulanger. . . " Hut he was a ' legionnaire,' and .1 was another, and I must stand by him until an ambulance came to remove him.

The crowd grew larger, and, licfore long, there were women and children among them; and tlio whole crew of ghouls seemed to me to gloat, over the spectacle of a dead 'legionnaire.'

" Home Arab women of the lowest class gathered close, and, hut for my growl, would doubtless have removed the dead man's hoots.

" Sonic of (lip loafing scum of Sidi-bel-Abbes came along; and one wag, pushing his way through, stepped info the little space about, (he corpse and exercised his wil. Having raised a laugh, he took poor Houlanger's right hand and shook it, with a vulgar jest. " t do not, practise 'ln boxe' as a sport, ' mcs amis,' but, believe, me, I know where and how 1o hit, a man when 1 am fighting to save my life—or to lose his. I hit that man—and I doubt if he has recovered ve(.

Tt was over two hours before (he military ambulance arrived, and the man whom I hit, was himself still in need of one. Boulanger was cut down, placed on the ambulance, and wheeled back to barrack^.

" And who do you think was standing waiting at the barrack gates as his body, decently covered, thank God, was wheeled through them ?"

(COPYRIGHT.)

" No. The worthy woman who had for so Jong lived in the house in which Sergeant and Madame Boulanger had made their nest in the Rue Christophe. Yes. And with her, Boulanger's three children. She had come upon one of thorn, the oldest one, slaving for some wretched stall-owning tradesman, and through her, had found out, where the others were.

" Captain Lainarline ordered that the dead man's rations should be given to this woman and the children, for so long as they choose to come for them. Whether he paid for them himself I do not know." Pere Cocteau, removing his " kepi," sought in its unattractive interior for a cigarette. lie found one—like himself—battered, war-worn and weary, but still entirely " bon pour lo service." " And from my story, you young soldiers, who talk about women, may draw a moral "

" Surely," agreed Abraham the Sailor. " Don't marry the highest kicker in the lowest cafe in Sidi-bel-Abbes. . . . 1 don't seo no other moral."

Sergeant Pflugge is a man who speaks most evilly to us to our faces, but apparently speaks well of us, or of some of us, behind our backs. Terence llogan and I were sent for, this morning, and informed by Lieutenant V—, now commanding this " poste," that we were to take charge of the store room, the dry-food " magasin," be responsible for it and for all issues from it, in the absence of the sergeant; and to be in the 6tore room guard by night and by day. We should have to issue, on indent, the necessary food and wine to the " legionnaires" who would be sent in, twice a week, from the various small outlying " postes" for their suppli.es. Lieutenant V —, something of a dandy and a fine gentleman, eyed us speculatively, as, with pursed lips and folded arms, he leant, back in his chair.

" I hear well of you both, ' mes enfants,' " he said, " and expect well of you. No drunkenness. ... No selling of stores. . . . No trouble with accounts. No complaints that short rations are issued. And mind, never both absent from the store room at the same time."

We stood at attention, like statues, and at appropriate moments murmured the appropriate replies. " ' Bien,' " said Lieutenant V—. " ' Rompez,' " and as we saluted and turned to go, added, looking at Terence Hogan. "An officer—er—formerly?" " ' Oui, mon commandant.' " " And you 1" he asked, looking at me. " Er—was not in the ranks, ' mon commandant,' " I replied. " Well, I shall hope to see you both sergeants some day," smiled Lieutenant V—.

Outside his quarters, Sergeant Pflugge brought us back to earth. Meanwhile, my budding field-mar-shals, hop like blazes and get, your kit—and jump to it. Transfer your beds to the store room, and sleep there."

" ' Bien, mon sergent,' " we both replied.

" God bless our home," observed Terence Hogan, as wo finished rigging up some blankets across a corner of the store room, cutting off a space, and making a tiny room within the room. " God bless our cubby-hole," I endorsed. > >l 'Tis but a tiny cottage," squeaked Terence Hogan, in a high falsetto. " But luv will make it he^vern." I looked at the earth floor, the rough stone walls of the corner, and the blankets which formed the third wall of this triangular heaven. " ' Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage,' " continued Terence Hogan, " but they make a good beginning. T suppose we lock ourselvpg in every night " ***»»*

I'm sorry for Sergeant Marcovitz, a reasonably honest man in a position of unreasonable difficulty for an honest man.

As Sergeant-Storekeeper lie is practically compelled to-play the dishonest grocer; and I am that the evil that I do is done at his command, the burden of my sins on his conscience. When he tells me to water the wine, it is my duty to water the wine. Wiien lie tells me to damp the sugar, it is my duty tp damp the sugar. Water is an even more useful commodity than I bad realised. Twenty litres of water poured into a wine-barrel containing five hundred and eighty litres of wine bring the cubical contents up to six hundred litres, which is the right amount—and ten kilogrammes of water poured on to two hundred and ninety kilogrammes of sugar brings the weight up to three hundred kilogrammes, which is the right amount. The trouble is that the convoys who bring the foodstuffs up from the base to this distributing centre invariably bring less than they profess to bring, and give us short measure and short weight. The fault is not ours. We do but pass it on.

Quite probably the commissariat people at the base themselves receive short measure, and do but pass it on. If so, perhaps the headquarters, when it comes to the base, suffers in like manner and from the same complaint. Where is the seat of the original sin, and who is the original sinner ?

" A contractor, doubtless," answered Terence Hogan. " And I would feign take a running kick at the seat of the original sin. . . . Ho sits around a groaning board in Paris, with lovely ladies; and I sit around a groaning stomach with . . ." And he eyed me in grim silence.

We get two terribly busy days each week, when the grumbling " legionnaires " come for their dry-goods and wine, and—judging others by themselves, as wo. tell thorn—firmly refuse to believe that, in the heat, the wood of the six-hundred-litre wine-barrels shrinks a trifle, and inevitably causes a small leakage. "'Sans clout e! Sans doute!' ... Leaks down vour dirty necks. . . ."

*' Anybody seen a rubber tube lying about ?"

" No. It's down at the bottom of the wine-cask." " They don't use a rubber tube, you fool. They stick their heads in. Smell his hair."

"What do you call this? . . . Oh! sugar, is it ? I thought it was molasses or porridge."

Sergeant Marcovitz arrives, bustling. " Did J hear a remark out of you ? . . . Something of a wit, eh ? . . . I'll take your name. "Name of a name of a hairy little serpent! Get out of this, you bald-faced, bat-eared bandicoot . . . before 1 have a word with you. . . ." Nevertheless the days that, Terence Hogan and I spent as grocer's-assistants were very happy ones. (To lie continued daily.)