There is no fixed penalty for desertion. In general the poumpistes are treated pretty mildly and sentenced, when they happen to be recruits, to 40 to 120 days' prison. Only when they are recruits. The veterans are always brought before the court-martial. But this is merely the general rule; if, for instance, a deserter has managed to get for some reason or another into the sergeant's or some other non-commissioned officer's "black books," the charge against him will be certain to include the loss of some part of his uniform, even when this is not in the least the case. The Foreign Legion has its own ideas of the subjects of pains and penalties. Viewed from the surface of things, there actually is a sort of scale of punishment. At the beginning comes extra corvée, which is quite bad enough. For little omissions in the daily routine, for a paquetage not quite accurately put together, or for a button not polished well enough, the offender can be sentenced by the sergeant of his section to perform the heavy duties of the corvée, while his comrades are making their repairs or having instructions. As long as I served in the Legion I was never punished for a fault of my own, not even with extra corvée--I took good care not to give the slightest excuse for punishment. More than once, however, I made the acquaintance of general corvée. This was our sergeant's speciality. When he inspected our quarters in the morning and found some petty excuse for finding fault, he did not bother with details, but just said: "Eh, corporal! A dirty, nasty room! Disgusting! The whole lot of you extra corvée this afternoon, under your supervision, corporal!" Whereupon the corporal cursed and every fellow in the room anathematised the sergeant as a "sale cochon"--a filthy swine. As the "swine," however, was clothed with the bristles of authority, the extra corvée had to be performed in spite of all curses and anathemas.