The noncommissioned officer pointed to a door. “Wait in that room with the others.”
When John stepped into the other room he saw at least thirty more men, and he heard conversations being carried on in several languages.
“Deutsch, Belge, Norsk, Español, English?” someone asked.
“American.”
“Oh, very good,” the man answered in English. “I am Hans Frey. I am Swiss, but I speak English. We can talk as we wait.”
“Is that your real name, or the name you were given?”
“It is the name that was given me by the noncommissioned officer when I reported, so now it is my real name.”
“I was given a new name as well, but if we are to be friends, I prefer to use my real name. It is John Jackson.”
“Yes, I think we will be friends,” Hans said.
“It will be good to have someone to talk to.”
“John, I have read of the terrible war in America,” Hans said. “Were you in the war?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you come to join the French Foreign Legion? You know, do you not, that the crazy French are in wars all over the world? They are in Mexico, and in Africa, and in Asia. And who do they send to fight their wars? They send the Foreign Legion.”
“Yes, so I have heard.”
“Have you a choice?” Hans asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I have no choice. I killed a man,” Hans said. He held up his finger. “Mind you, I am not sorry that I killed this man, for if ever a man needed to be killed, it was Max Botta. He was a most despicable person, who by his fraud and deceit, ruined the life of a good man. My father took his own life because of Max Botta.”
“Yes, I can see how you would want to avenge that.”
“You can see that because you are my friend. But I fear that the law may not see things my way, so I left Switzerland, and where could I go but the Foreign Legion? Look around you,” Hans invited. “What do you see, besides murderers, thieves, adulterers, men who have much reason to leave their homeland and no reason to stay?”
“I see.”
For the next hour John and Hans, and an Englishman, carried on but one of many conversations, the drone of voices filling the room.
The Englishman was Desmond Winthrop. Winthrop had been indiscreet enough to impregnate the daughter of the mayor of his town, and not wanting to get married, had left the country.
All during their conversation Sergeant Major Dubois, the noncommissioned officer who had welcomed them to the building in the first place, would periodically call out a name.
“Jean Jourdain?”
There was no answer.
“Jean Jourdain?” Sergeant Major Dubois said again, and this time he stared directly at John. That was when John remembered that he was Jean Jourdain.
“I’m here,” John replied, holding up his hand.
“Come, you must speak with the capitaine,” he said.
Capitaine Pierre Beajou had a very large moustache, but no beard. He was wearing a dark blue uniform with brass buttons, and he was looking a piece of paper as John came in. Automatically, John saluted.
“Have a seat, Monsieur Jourdain,” Capitaine Beajou said. “I see by the papers you filled out that you are a capitaine in the American army.”
“Yes.”
“For the North, or the South?”
“For the North.”
“That is most unusual, monsieur. We have many men who were officers for the South, leaving because their army is no more, their country is no more. We do not have so many from the army of the North. You will, no doubt, be serving with many of these men. Will you be disturbed by that?”
“No.”
“That is good. You do understand, do you not, Monsieur Jourdain, that even though you were an officer in the American army, that you cannot be an officer here? Only Frenchmen who have gone to school at Saint-Cyr—that is like your West Point—can be officers.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You were in the war, but in your war, gentlemen were fighting gentlemen. Here, the ones you fight are not gentlemen. You are likely to get your throat cut by some Arab or Tonkin. Or, maybe you’ll just be wounded. In that case, the women will make sausage out of you.
“And if that doesn’t happen you’ll have to deal with fever, sunstroke, bad water, and bad food. All in all, it is a bad business.
“And who will you be serving with? Deserters, thieves, murderers, scallywags who have run out on their families, or who have squandered their wealth.
“Why are you here? A petticoat, is it? Were you deceived by a faithless sweetheart?”
John thought of Lucy Manning.
“I have my reasons,” he replied.
“Yes, don’t you all,” Capitaine Beajou said. He made a dismissive motion with his hand.
“Go away, Monsieur Jourdain. Leave while you still can. Have a good dinner tonight at the Moulin Rouge. Watch the pretty girls, enjoy some wine, and think about this.
“Tomorrow, we will swear in the new recruits. If you come tomorrow, you will be sworn in with the others. If you do not come tomorrow, you are still free to go, and that, my friend, would be the wisest thing for you to do.”
When the recruiting office opened for business the next morning, John was there. Hans and Desmond were there was well, as were all the others he had seen the day before.
The oath of enlistment was issued in French, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Italian, and English. Then, when all were sworn in, all the new recruits shouted: “Vive la France. Vive la Liberté. Vive la Légion Étrangère!”
And after shouting it in French, each new recruit repeated it in his own language. “Long live France. Long live Liberty. Long live the Foreign Legion!”
[Part of the defining characteristic of the legion is its rule of anonymity, which says that all legionnaires must give up their civil identity upon enlisting. With their old identities set aside, recruits join the legion under a declared identity—a new name that they use during their first year of service. At the end of the first year a legionnaire may reclaim his old name through a process known as “military regularization of the situation,” in which fresh identity papers are obtained from the person’s home country. Alternatively, a legionnaire can choose to spend his entire career under his declared identity, and many do.—ED.]
French Indochina—October 1867
On the 30th of October, at 1:00 A.M., John was with the 3rd Company of the Foreign Legion, consisting of sixty-two soldiers plus three officers, en route to Bien Hoa. At 7:00 A.M., after a fifteen-mile march, they stopped for a breakfast of bread and coffee. Soon after, the Black Flag force of Liu Yongfu was sighted. He was leading a cavalry battalion of over six hundred men, which meant that the 3rd Company was outnumbered by a ratio of ten to one.
Capitaine Beajou ordered the company to take up a square formation, and, though retreating, he rebuffed several cavalry charges, inflicting heavy losses on the Annamese army by use of accurate long-range fire.
Looking for a place that would provide a better defensive position, Capitaine Beajou moved his troops to a nearby ngôi nhà trang trai, a farmhouse protected by a stone wall that was three feet high. His plan was to keep the Black Flag forces occupied until relieved by Capitaine Ernest Doudart de Lagrée. While his legionnaires prepared to defend the farm, Liu Yongfu demanded that Beajou and his soldiers surrender, noting the numeric superiority of the Black Flag Army.
Beajou replied: “We have munitions. We will not surrender.” He then swore a fight to the death, an oath which was seconded by the men who were with him.
John could not help but think back to Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. There too, he had the protection of a stone fence. But there, he had at least ten thousand men deployed along Cemetery Ridge. Here, there were but sixty-five of them, against six hundred.