ARMY OF "LOST SOULS"

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 118, 14 November 1929, Page 20

ARMY OF "LOST SOULS"

-FRENCH FOREIGN » : LEGION 7 "TREATED LIKE DOGS" The story cabled from Paris, that sixty members of the French Foreign legion, ambushed by Arabs a few days ago in South-Eastern Morocco, fought ■with-incredible fury until only six remained alive, and that these six .were still fighting when a relief force araived, has the authentic flavour, of a piece of fiction by P. C. 'Wren, the author of the Beau Geste novels, says a writer in the Adelaide "Observer." Wren lias always claimed that his Stories are founded on fact; and, the more one hears of. the French Legionnaires, the more reasonable this claim appears. ~* A book was recently published in London which purported to be the true account of the adventures of an Englishman in, "The Legion of the Damned." John Harvey, the author, says he was born in a mining village, uaud at fourteen was earning his living ' .'underground. At seventeen, he was serving in Flanders with the South ■ Wales Borderers. After the war caihe unemployment; and in 1925 Harvey was in London, down and out, and desperate. . - He and a friend named Whittingham were lamenting their lot one day, ■when a third-man, who seemed one of themselves, suggested that they would do well to join the French ' Foreign Legion—at ten francs a day, and for a bouus' of 0000 francs. Acting on his advice, they sought out the French Consulate. Yes, they were told, ten francs :i day, and a bonus of 5000 francs! So they eagerly volunteered, and were as eagerly accepted.

"MON CAPITAINE! "

They could hardly believe their good fortune, says Harvey. Out in the streets once more, they laughed till they cried. '-They one another on the back. They called' each other "Mou Capitaine."

Over on the other side of the Channel, things did not look so rosy; and a "pigsty meal" of horse flesh ana musty haricot beans, in the barracks at Calais, shared with a lot 'of filthy tramps who were also intended for the Foreign Legion, was rather a blow.

-" Harvey consoled himself with the reflection that in such company lie would soon earn a commission; and in any case he continued to think of his ten francs* a day, until, at Marseilles, the first" pay day came round, and he discovered that he was to receive exactly a twentieth

part of what he had expected. As to the bonus, that dwindled to 250 francs, with a promise of more.

The iron hand of the sternest military discipline fairly closed on Harvey and his tattered comrades in misfortune as soon as they arrived at Tunis. Herded into cattle trucks—two dozen to a truck, and a temperature of about 100 in the shade —they were transported to Sousse,- the North African seaport which is the depot of the famous Legion.

"HUMAN SCUM."

It was not long before Harvey concluded that the whole Legion is "composed of human scum." The average legionnaire, he says, is frankly a blackguard, and generally a fugitive from-justice. "Sousse can boast a. selection of murderers, thieves, crooks, thugs, and degenerates, which makes the Dartmoor collection seem quite mild by comparison. The Legion, in short, is the cutthroats' suro asylum."

Harvey laughs at the idea that the legionnnaireSi arp strong, silent heroes. They are some thousands of undesirables segregated in the African desert, and most of them die there* The Legion is "civilisation's dust-bin," and it shouljl " certainly be avoided by all nice heroes"—a clear allusion to Beau Geste and his friends. "Even the beggars draw their rags aside and spit their hatred and contempt at the legionnaires as they pass. Scum!"

"They were vivid months that we spent at Sousse," says Harvey. "The heat and the eternal swarm of flies— the cruel discipline—a scream of pain following the sharp crack of a whip— heart-breaking fatigues under the blazing sun—wild, drunken orgies—the solitude of the cells —bestial fights—degradation—only a Dante could do justice to that inferno of lost souls."

SYRIA, A DUNGEON, FREEDOM.

Eveulually, says Harvey, ho was shipped" off to Syria with a detachment to fight the Druses. . Although the legionnaires were guarded like prisoners, half of them managed to escape before they reached Beyrout.

The author of this sensational book tells some horrifying stories of his experiences "at the front."

Some of them make Beau Geste look pale by comparison.

Stationed, at last, within about sixty miles of the Palestine border and British territory, says Harvey, he and a few of his companions determined to make a dash for liberty. They tried it, and, after terrible sufferings, were captured by a French outpost within a few hundred yards of the frontier, - and "chained two and two, alive with lice, coatless, our shirts in tatters, filthy and unshaven," were marched off to Damascus and hurled' into dungeons. . Harvey served eighteen months of a sentence of eight years for desertion; and then, "representations having been made by the British Government," ho was released and returned to England.