The Second Adventure MEGAPACK by Frank Belknap Long

Author:Frank Belknap Long [Long, Frank Belknap]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure;fantasy;pulp;fiction;shorts stories
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2019-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE HONOR OF THE LEGION, by John D. Newsom

Originally published in Frontier Stories Aug 1927.

The grogshop was almost empty. The kerosene-oil lamp hanging from the low ceiling smoked, filling the hot, fetid air with a cloud of black smudges. The wine stains on the filthy table-tops crawled with flies.

Behind the bar sat Greek Ike, so called because his real name was Pericles Constantinapoulos. His bare, hairy forearms rested on the counter and his chin rested on his forearms, so that to the customers, he presented nothing but a head—fat, flabby, and pock-marked, with a shock of oily black hair curling down over his right eye. When he yawned, his lower jaw being in contact with an immovable object, the top part of his face tilted slowly upward over the cavern of his mouth, and closed again with a soft, squelching sound. Occasionally he snored. Business was slack.

In the doorway squatted two Arab camel-boys, drinking tepid grenadine out of a chipped earthenware bowl. When they were not actively engaged in the process of drinking, they sat huddled in their rags, motionless as carved images, and stared out at the pitch black night which shrouded the houses of Bir Ghessou, French North Africa. Feeling lonely, no doubt, in such strange and civilized surroundings, they held on to each other with their little fingers hooked together.

At one of the tables sat a full-blooded Negro, who wore a pale blue burnoose and a crimson turban. And in that land of sandals and bare feet he alone wore a pair of brown pigskin oxfords, with welts a quarter-inch broad. Lavender socks and pink garters added a touch of startling color to his ebony legs sticking out from beneath the folds of his burnoose. He too dozed a little as he staled at his half-empty glass of absinthe. From time to time he inhaled smoke from a cigarette, and blew little blue spurts through his flattened nostrils.

All the noise that was being made in the grogshop was caused by three soldiers of the second class of the French Foreign Legion, who were grouped about a table close to the one window in the room.

Murillio and von Halter were helping Thorpe celebrate his release from the prison cells, where he had been cooped up for the past fortnight. The celebration, however, was more in the nature of a wake, for with Thorpe’s exception an atmosphere of gloom pervaded the gathering.

At the moment they were discussing the looks, morals, brutality, and ultimate fate of Adjutant Cuvier, a martinet who had incurred the black, unchristian hatred of the entire Bir Ghessou garrison, which consisted of one hundred and twenty men.

“If I had my way,” declared Murillio, clutching his head between his fists, “it is a bayonet I would plant in his ribs!”

“And it would be no more than justice,” agreed von Halter, “but there is no justice at Bir Ghessou.”

“Which makes me think it’s time we had another little drink,” drawled Thorpe, inverting the bottles one by one. “Ike!” he called to the patron.

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