Part 27 (2/2)
”Eugene Sanders.”
”Profession?”
”Engineer--from Tlemcen--on the way to Nice.”
”Thank you.”
... After a few minutes the s.h.i.+p's bell rang out, the gangways were pulled in, and the screw began to revolve. I went into my cabin and went to sleep. During the whole of the sea voyage I had not a single thought, not a single hope, not a single fear--I merely slept.
As the _St. Augustine_ ran into harbour in Ma.r.s.eilles, a new difficulty presented itself. What would the custom-house say to my valise filled with paper? Luggage of this sort would have made anybody suspicious.
Chance came to my aid. A number of boats crowded around the s.h.i.+p, and several boatmen climbed on board to offer their services as porters, and so on. I went up to one of them and told him that I wanted to be put on sh.o.r.e as quickly as possible. Could he do it?
”For five francs,” the fellow said.
”All right. Row me over.”
My satchel I left on board to avoid the customs inspection.
A gangway had already been let down from the side of the steamer, and I stepped down into the boat with my boatman. Ten minutes later I stood on the ”quai” in Ma.r.s.eilles. In another five minutes I had found a cab and was on my way to the station. Half an hour later I was seated in a compartment of an express train for the Riviera.
A Riviera journey in the darkness.... Toulon flew past--Cannes. In Nice I could hear even in the railway-train the noise of the carnival which was nearing its end--the platform was covered with confetti. We reached Monaco--Monte Carlo, with its brilliantly illuminated casino.
At last we reached Ventimiglia: the first Italian station!
It was one o'clock in the morning. I stormed into the telegraph-office and despatched two telegrams to my two dearest....
Free--free again!
CHAPTER XV
J'ACCUSE
Two years after : Shadows of the past : My vision : Public opinion and the Foreign Legion : The political aspect of the Foreign Legion : The moralist's point of view : The ”Legion question” in a nutsh.e.l.l : A question the civilised world should have answered long ago : Quousque tandem...?
Two years have pa.s.sed.
They were years of fighting and years of toil. Years in which I burnt much midnight oil, and in which every tiny success meant worlds to me.
My personal att.i.tude towards the Foreign Legion was a rather peculiar one at first. For several months I forced myself never even to think of the time when I was in the Legion. Those times should merely be to me a dim shadow of the past.
I looked upon them as an ugly page that I should only too gladly have torn out of the book of my life: since, however, I could not rid myself of them in this way I avoided ever opening the book at this page....
But the past which we should like to forget has an unpleasant way of forcing itself upon us, unbidden and against our will.
Often as I lay back in my arm-chair in an idle quarter of an hour, scenes from my life in the Legion mingled dimly with the blue smoke of my cigarette. An endless procession of legionnaires would pa.s.s before me, a procession of men loaded like beasts of burden, their backs bent almost double, panting and gasping as they struggled forward in the sand: I could see their staring eyes, their rounded backs. I felt the tortures they were undergoing, how they struggled forward till their last ounce of strength was spent: even their groans were audible to me.
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