A SOLDIER OF THE LEGION

A SOLDIER OF
THE LEGION

BY

EDWARD MORLAE

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1916

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published June 1916

PREFACE

When Sergeant Morlae turned up at the Atlantic office and, withhis head cocked on one side, remarked ingratiatingly, "I'm told thisis the highest-toned office in the United States," there was nothingto do but to assure him he was right and to make him quite comfortablewhile he told his wonderful story. That story, however, was not toldconsecutively, but in chapters as his crowding recollections respondedto the questions of his interlocutor. It was a story, too, which couldnot be told at a sitting, and it was not until the evening of thesecond day that Sergeant Morlae recounted the exploit which won theCroix de Guerre pinned to his chest—a cross which he said, with thesole touch of personal pride noticed in three days passed largely inhis company, had above it not the copper but the silver clasp.

Sergeant Morlae is a Dirk Hatteraick of a man to look at, and theeducation of that beloved pirate was no more rugged than his own. Hisfather was a Frenchman born who had seen service in '70 and won acaptain's commission in the "Terrible Year." After the war, Morlae,senior, settled in this country and his son was born in California. Asyoung Morlae grew up, finding the family business of contracting on asmall scale somewhat circumscribed, he sought more hazardousemployment in active service in the Philippines and in more than onecivilian "scrap" in Mexico. It was good training. August, 1914, foundhim again in Los Angeles. For two days his French blood mounted as heread the newspapers, and on the morning of August 3 he packed his gripand started for Paris to enlist in the Legion. Since he had alreadyseen service, he was soon made a corporal and later a sergeant.Morlae, says a letter from a Harvard graduate who served under him inthose days, was "an excellent soldier," "a strong, efficient,ambitious man," though, as the reader of this and letters from otherLegionaries may infer, he was neither sentimental in his methods norsupersensitive with his men. Maintaining discipline in so motley acrew as the Legion is rather a rasping process, and Sergeant Morlaewas born disqualified for diplomatic service. Future reunions of LaLégion are likely to lack the sweet placidity which wraps the GrandArmy of the Republic on the anniversaries of Chancellorsville andGettysburg.

But to the story. The things that war is are not often told except ingeneralization or in words of fanciful rhetoric. It would be hard tofind elsewhere, crammed into a brief narrative, so much of the senseof actuality—that realism made perfect which even readers who haveknown no such experience feel instinctively is true. Yet the story isnot made of horror. The essence of its life is the spirit thatdelights in peril. The "Soldier of the Legion" has in it that spinalthrill which has electrified great tales of battle since blood wasfirst let and ink spilled to celebrate it.

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