PASS THE BREAD

We’d mill about behind the accommodation block smoking, if you had a cigarette that is. Just waiting till someone made a decision. We hadn’t really got to grips with the routine yet, but that would come in time. One or two of the corporals would finally make an appearance and we  would drift towards where they were. They still managed to keep their distance from the rest of us. Standing there with their little invisible shield around them which no one dared to try and penetrate. We hadn’t really worked out if it was a good or a bad thing for them to know our names this early on.

Whenever it was time, the corporals would stub out their fags and give a slight nod, obviously time to start falling in. There was no "right lads its time we made a move". You never knew when it was a recognised mealtime through hunger. As you were always hungry, virtually every minute of the day.

We being the engage volunteer’s had no concept of time. Because at this stage most us had our watches confiscated when we joined up and hadn’t been given them back. You can use your watch as compass and in case you decided to leg it, they didn’t want to help you in any shape or form.

We were told to fall in and size off. Then there would be a head count and if all was okay, the company would come to attention and with an intro and a key of pitch, a song would commence for the march to the refectory. The refectory was what they called the cookhouse.

We would march from behind the accommodation block past the MP’s post (never get arrested by the Legions MP’s) and the infamous deuxieme bureau. The offices of the military intelligence branch of the Legion (Gestapo HQ we called it). Up onto the front of the square and past the main gate. Looping round to the left and the front of the cookhouse. Here we would mark time until the end of the song.

On the edge of the square to our left were some horizontal bars set at different heights. These were used to perform heaves to the chin. Front grips and not arm style curls, bloody different and hard I can tell you. If they hadn’t started to file inside or if there were a particularly large amount of recruits waiting to go in. Or if you were really unlucky and we had pissed off somebody .You formed up behind the bars and did heaves until you went in. Normally I was okay at heaves British army underarm style to the chest (fore arm pulls basically). But this new way of doing things had me beat at first.

Once it was okay to carry on, or they had succeeded in totally wiping everybody out on the bars. If you couldn’t do the heaves to the bar, they made you do press-ups. While you were trying to do these, they told you what a complete wanker you were by screaming obscenities at you. Then having explained where you went wrong, by kicking you in the ribs. Made you climb back on the bar till you dropped off, totally fucked and just about able to breathe. Receiving yet another kicking for your alleged pathetic efforts.

Pre-meal exercises now finished for the moment, we went single file through the doors and passed by the serving hatch. Here every first and eighth person was handed a platter or some type of serving dish with food in it. The refectory was huge and split into different sections, depending if you were a recruit or a corporal on the permanent staff or perhaps part of a course that was being run at the depot.

Breakfast comprised of coffee and bread. Perhaps there would be butter and if you were really lucky jam (one jar per 60 recruits or usually just the one jar). Sundays it was hot chocolate and croissants filled with chocolate. The mid day meal was always some kind of salad during the summer or a soup that was filling but would not be found in any published cookbook.

Chips or fries if you prefer, were another regular on the menu as was pasta. The evening meal would be a variation of the mid-day meal. The only extra was a half litre of wine or coke at mid day and evening meals. I never saw any milk. I ate things in those days that I don’t know what they were (I still don’t want to know), or what they tasted of, we were that hungry.

It was reckoned that you needed 1500 calories per day to sustain a legionnaire. If that was what we got I would be very surprised. We might have joined as different shapes and sizes but after a couple of weeks from the side, we all looked the same. Thin. Or lean if you prefer. Lean mean fighting machines. There was definitely no surplus fat to be found.

The layout however didn’t vary all that much. It was set as tables of eight places and the food was put in the centre of the table. There were exactly eight portions in each large bowl on the table. But you had to be quick. And those French bastards knew it. It didn’t take them long. Every body else was just too trusting that was the overall problem. But once you had missed a meal the rules changed I can tell you.

We the non-Franco fones were all eager to learn French. It helped to know what was happening and if there was going to be a punch or boot heading in your direction in the near future. Just so you could duck or kick back. The sous-officers and the corporals were trying to teach us French. There were two trains of thought or teaching methods employed in this.

The sous-officers had us all sitting on the small stools at the tables in the dormitories and there they went through the two verbs etre to be and avoir to have. Great stuff. All parrot fashion though. We could recite it backward even side ways. But it still meant shit to us.

Meanwhile the corporals had a different approach to the matter. The martini approach, any place any time. They would teach you a word, point to the object. Then with a smile on their face and a song in their heart, gaily punch you in the stomach until they knocked you down or over. You weren’t punched in the face or any area that would leave a visible bruise or break the skin. I used to remember their lessons, basic caveman style of instruction. But it worked.

It was not that they were super human big Arnie style guys. Though there were those types of guys about. It was that we were not used to the diet and all the physical exercise, the heat totally drained us. You also in the beginning did not know you were about to be hit. Surprise is a great advantage. If you were insane enough to take a swing at any one corporal then the whole section of corporals from the company came and beat the shit out of you. You stood where you were and got punched senseless.

We also had the rest of our fellow recruits who tried to teach us. Some Germans, who lived in the border areas, people from the colonies and ex-colonies like the Portuguese. Which really gave rise to a melange of accents, it was no wonder that people would look at you for a long time before it dawned on them what you were saying. Then the actual Franco fones started to take an interest in our language difficulties. Now most of these bastards spoke fluent English, a fact I was to find out in later years.

This is where it takes us back to the refectory. Once seated at the tables we would take from our pockets the fork, spoon and the wooden handled lock knife we had been given (I believe we actually had to buy the knife from our first pay, but I digress). Any way we now had the odd couple of Franco fones join in amongst us at the tables for meals. They would join in and point at the fork saying what it was and getting us to repeat it. Asking us to pass them various items, like salt, pepper, water and bread.

Now usually bread was to be found in abundance on the tables or at the back of the dining area, stacks of it literally. Sometimes you’d run out and you would have to turn your back on your plate and ask the neighbouring table for some. This was what the French git had been waiting for. Once your back was turned he had your ration away. They would generally try and ask you for the bread before you had taken your food from the communal plate in the centre. But it didn’t matter. Just to turn your back was enough.

Now everybody was just in such a rush to get their share and start eating that it wasn’t always noticed in the early stages where the plate had started from, before being passed round. It could be passed to you empty. Or never even reach you. But normally it would be placed in front of you on the table. With your piece of meat or whatever still in the dish. When you turned back with the loaf of bread from the other table all heads were down and the dish and your plate were empty.

Nobody sees or hears anything in the Legion. You are supposed to sort it out yourself. No good crying to the section corporals they’d just punch you. I got caught out once, and once was enough. Through a process of elimination I worked out from whom had been sitting at the table. Then watched over a course of several meals to see if others lost their ration as well. I finally sussed the bloke out and made sure I got to sit beside him on one of the evening meals. I had a plan.

I had arranged with another Englishman, Woody Kay. That he was to sit on the same table but opposite from me and keep watch. When the bread routine was tried on me, he would kick my leg under the table. Just as the thieving bastard was pinching my food. It worked a treat. He asked for the bread. I turned. Woody tapped my leg under the table. I spun back round. Promptly skewering his hand to the tabletop with my fork.

I always thought Formica was very tough, but then again I was very annoyed and all those chin ups and press-ups seemed to have worked.

GiAjl