They Were Divided - Miklos Banffy [94]
‘The Foreign Legion? Oh, that’s very simple!’ And he at once gave Abady all the most important facts, namely that the candidate just presented himself at the recruiting office. No documents were necessary and no questions were asked. It was just like becoming a Carthusian friar. One could use any name one liked; the Legion did not care and indeed nearly all the men serving in it went under false names. There was a medical examination and once that was passed the candidate was offered a five-year contract. Promotion to corporal was fairly swift providing a man behaved himself, and it was by no means unknown for officers to be promoted from the ranks. After five years a man could leave the Legion or sign on for a further period.
‘I know of several men who have quit after their years of service, bought a small farm out there in Algeria and now live happily at their ease. Of course the discipline is hard, very hard; but it has to be as the men are a pretty wild bunch, tough fellows, and rough too, though reliable comrades when the fighting gets grim and the patrols are ambushed. There is an iron tradition that no one lets down a comrade, ever. The climate’s not too bad: it’s healthy, even if it does get hot in the summer.’
As always Laczok spoke in French, and he went on to relate many things from his own experience when he had been building the railway in the high Atlas and when he and his men had been protected by the Legion’s vigilance. Laczok had been an exceptionally perceptive observer. Suddenly he stopped reminiscing and said, ‘But I haven’t offered you anything! Wouldn’t you like some coffee? I’m always ready for a cup!’ and without waiting for a reply he leaned back his strong, pillar-like torso, and called out in Hungarian, ‘Rara! Rara! Where the Devil are you, you little beast?’ and, turning back to Abady, he explained, ‘Her real name is Esmeralda, but I call her Rara for short. Perhaps it’s a bit sugary, but you’ll see it suits her!’
The door opened quietly behind him and a very young, very slim and very beautiful gypsy girl came into the room. She wore a red dress as bright as a fireman’s tunic, which set off her coal-black hair. Her brown skin seemed almost to have a greenish glow and it was with pouting lips and a languorous glance filled with sensual invitation that, in a throaty voice that suggested that she was in fact offering herself, she asked, ‘You wanted me?’
‘Coffee! For both of us!’
‘It’s on the stove; I’ll bring some straight away!’
She went noiselessly from the room and a few moments later returned just as silently. Her bare feet did not make the smallest sound on the floor, for she walked on tiptoe like a young deer; and she moved slowly just as if she were performing some ancient ritual dance to a melody only she could hear. As she put down the tray she looked again at Tamas’s guest and, in her long eyes and in the smile on her now widely parted lips, the invitation was unmistakable.
If Count Tamas had noticed this he showed no sign but went on with his tales of the Legion. ‘I should think it’s probably a good moment to join, for they’ll be wanting recruits just now; more and more of them from what my old friends write to me from time to time. I see from the Paris papers – though they always write in such guarded terms – that France has got great plans for Morocco too these days. You can always tell what the French mean when they start complaining about this and that and talking about the security of their borders and the necessity to safeguard their economic interests. It just means that one of these days they’ll march in; and once there everyone else will be squeezed out! You mark my words!’
‘But at the Algeciras Conference, and when the Franco-German agreement was signed two years ago, the French again confirmed their open-door policy as regards Morocco, just as they guaranteed the independence and authority of