Then--the great change came. One day there was a letter for me. Love had found me out across a continent. I read and read and read again. That was the turning-point of my life. I broke my fetters, and I fought a hard fight for a new career.... Now the jewel happiness is mine. ERWIN ROSEN HAMBURG, 1909 CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I LÉGIONNAIRE! In Belfort : Sunrays and fear : Madame and the waiter : The French lieutenant : The enlistment office of the Foreign Legion : Naked humanity : A surgeon with a lost sense of smell : "Officier Allemand" : My new comrades : The lieutenant-colonel : A night of tears 1 CHAPTER II L'AFRIQUE Transport of recruits on the railway : What our ticket did for us and France : The patriotic conductor : Marseilles : The gate of the French Colonies : The Colonial hotel : A study in blue and yellow : On the Mediterranean : The ship's cook : The story of the Royal Prince of Prussia at Saida : Oran : Wine and légionnaires : How the deserter reached Spain and why he returned 16 CHAPTER III LÉGIONNAIRE NUMBER 17889 French and American bugle-calls : Southward to the city of the Foreign Legion : Sidi-bel-Abbès : The sergeant is not pleased : A final fight with pride : The jokes of the Legion : The wise negro : Bugler Smith : I help a légionnaire to desert : The Eleventh Company : How clothes are sold in the Legion : Number 17889 35 CHAPTER IV THE FOREIGN LEGION'S BARRACKS In the company's storeroom : Mr. Smith--American, légionnaire, philosopher : The Legion's neatness : The favourite substantive of the Foreign Legion : What the commander of the Old Guard said at Waterloo : Old and young légionnaires : The canteen : Madame la Cantinière : The regimental feast : Strange men and strange things : The skull : The prisoners' march : The wealth of Monsieur Rassedin, légionnaire : "Rehabilitation" : The Koran chapter of the Stallions 48 CHAPTER V THE MILITARY VALUE OF THE FOREIGN REGIMENTS A day's work as a recruit : Allez, hurry up! : The Legion's etiquette : A morning's run : The "cercle d'enfer" and the lack of soap : The main object of the Legion's training : Splendid marchers : Independent soldiers : Forty kilometres a day : Uniform, accoutrements, baggage, victualling : The training of the légionnaire in detail : The légionnaire as a practical man : Specialties of the Legion : Programme for a week in the Legion : The légionnaire as a labourer 77 CHAPTER VI "THE LEGION GETS NO PAY"