"I lay on my bed half naked. The room was as hot as a stove, filled with the stench of perspiration. A brilliant strip of sunlight played through the long room from window to window. Oh, the heat, the heat. Even the walls felt hot. In the bare, whitewashed room the men lay groaning on their beds in all kinds of possible and impossible positions. Some were swearing, others quarrelling--nothing brings on the "cafard" so quickly as physical suffering. Two Spaniards were quarrelling in the loud gesticulating manner of their race; a German in the next bed had fallen asleep, and was muttering words of German in his dream. He was dreaming of his mother. In the other corner of the room a Frenchman was shouting frantically to some one to give him a brush--his own brush was lost. His bed neighbour hummed a marching song, half in Arabic, half in French, always with the same refrain: "'Si le caporal savait ça, il dirait: Nom de Dieu.' "Another man slowly and automatically rubbed his leather straps, a third one informed everybody that the sergeant was a rogue and was working him to death. Here the German awoke. Disturbed in his sleep he yelled out: 'Shut up you beggars.' And the Frenchmen and Spaniards began to curse on hearing German words. "'Monsieur le Caporal'[4] sat up slowly and tiredly and, leaning on his elbow, said in a low tone of voice: [4] "Monsieur le Caporal" was Corporal Wassermann's nickname, because in the eyes of the légionnaires he was far too particular in his manners and language when giving orders. "'A little silence, please.' "The Spaniards laughed and a Frenchman said under his breath, the damned 'casque à pique,' meaning the Prussian helmet, might leave honest légionnaires in peace during siesta. "The corporal did not move. In his quiet even tone he went on speaking: 'Silence. You all know that during siesta all noise is forbidden. Legrand, for using the epithet "casque à pique," I punish you with two days' barrack arrest. You are not serving in a French line regiment, but in the Foreign Legion. You understand, do you not, that in the Foreign Legion no man is taxed with his nationality. And in every respect it is very unwise to vex your corporal. Ça y est.' "At that the légionnaire laughed and quiet reigned once more. "My God, the heat was terrible. Then all at once a slashing, metallic sound. One of the Spaniards had pulled down the long bayonet that always hangs over a légionnaire's bed, and was in the act of assaulting his countryman and comrade. The corporal sprang between the two and sent one flying to the right, the other to the left. In a second the whole place was in an uproar. The two Spaniards threw themselves upon each other, anxious to kill each other. The other légionnaires laughed and howled out through it all.... "At last the signal, 'Debout, légionnaires, debout!' 'Up, up!' sounded down in the yard. The siesta was at an end."