Memoirs of the Foreign Legion by Maurice Magnus

THE discipline of the room was very severe. Each day one of the inmates was _garde de chambre_. This meant that in addition to all his regular work he had to do this extra service. He was obliged to rise before the others, a quarter of an hour before the _réveil_, and go downstairs with a slip of paper from the corporal, mentioning the number of occupants of the room, to an outhouse, where the stuff served as coffee and called _jus_ by the soldiers was given out in big tin pails. On his return he had to serve each man with the "juice." His next duty was to sweep the room. Each man had to sweep under his own bed first, and fold up his sheets and turn the mattress half over to air; then the room-guard had to sprinkle the middle part of the room and sweep the dirt out of the door on to the landing, which he took turns in sweeping with the room-guard of the adjoining room. The finishing touch of cleaning was to place the two benches upside down on the table, and to supply the room with a pail of drinking water. The room-guard had to be ready for the exercises like all the rest of the squad, and on their return he was not allowed to leave the room again. He did not have to go to the Report, but he had to sprinkle the room again and sweep. There was an awful amount of sprinkling and sweeping, but that did not help the filthy, never-scrubbed, unpainted boards of the floor at all. His food was brought to him. If any one made any dust or dirt in the room he had to clean it up. In the afternoon he had to go to the exercises, naturally, and after his return he was forced to remain in the room for the rest of the evening. His supper was also brought to him. He had to sweep about four times a day, and supply drinking water quite as many times. On days when we returned soaking wet from our exercises in a blinding rain, it was also his duty to bring up hot _jus_ to warm our insides. The men took turns for room-guard duty, so that each man's turn came about once a fortnight, unless some one was punished and received several days' room-guard duty.

Our brooms were stolen very often. Brooms were not supplied by the Government; we had to buy them ourselves, therefore they were particularly desirable. They were made of palm leaves and were used until they became short thick stumps and no longer deserved the name of brooms.