FIGHT TOR FRANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 105, 31 October 1933, Page 16

FIGHT TOR FRANCE

BRITISH SOLDIERS

TROOPS OF THE LEGION

TOY THEY JOINED "

Although, there are very few Englishmen in the Foreign Legion, I keep on coming across them as I move about this widely' ecatterod, mountain-divided front, writes:G. Ward Price, tho "Daily Mail" correspondent from Morocco. Within the laat two days I have met three. There are nine- or ten other English Logionaries whose names I have heard but whom I cannot find.' Ono of them used to bo a jockey and is said to have ridden in the Grand l Jrix de Paris, being now an officer's groom; another has to do ten years' eervico instead of five for. attempted desertion. There is a Scottish fisher-lad also; another Scot, who has lived in South Africa and spends his spare time writing poems; a Cockney corporal; a. third Scottish lad who-plays the saxophone in the Legion band at Meknes, and so does not come on active service; and an Irishman who .was wounded in the severe fighting on Mount Sagho last February and is in hospital at.Meknes. The British Legionaries. I have met are: Quartermaster-Sergeant Alfred Carter, with thirteen years' service, ( who comes from Tottenham, and. is in what they called the "Mounted Company" of the Legion, "vith one mule to every two men; Legionary Ronald Delaney, whose real name is Ronald. House, of the Machine-gun Company of the Ist Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the Legion, whose family live in Islington, N.; and a fine, upstanding youngman from Birmingham, who .asked me to refer to him only as having been formerly in.-: the Ist Battalion of the Coldstream Guards. ALL AGREED. These three all said, quite independently, the same things about the Legion:' .. 1. That it is a very hard life; 2. That a man who behaves him* self does not get on too badly; and 3. That they would, not advise their friends to join. Legionary House, as I will call him, for he is about to "rectify," as they term it, the name under which he joined, is an' adventurous young man of- 27, who left homo two and a half years ago to join the' Legion. He used to be in the band of the Artists' Rifles, and. was a prominent member of the Polytechnic Boxing Club,- being in the semi-final »f the .welterweights of the Territorial Army Boxing. ; Championship in 1957; By-profession he was a draughtsman^ ••" Both, his -sketching and his boxing qualities' have stood him in good stead in -the Legion,.:and next Armistice Day-he. -isvto be .decorated with the French1 -Wat. Gross for gallant conduct on" outpost duty under -fire. ~ He was working with, pick and shovel making abroad six miles away from French .Headquarter!) when he heard that I was here, and getting leave from 'his- commanding, officer, rode in on a mule to see me. "We take the 'Daily Mail' at home, and I have seen your name so often that I felt I knew you already. How^s Tom Webster?" he said, arriving at ray tent just after dark with his pack and carbine, a piece of tread, and somo tinned meat for his sapper, and permission to spend the night away from this battalion. ROUGH BUT GOOD. Eonald House says the Legion is rough, bnt "all right if a fellow can hold his own." He has had fights innumerable and his conclusion is that "foroignets are not like Englishmen; they can't stand a good punch in the jaw." . . ■■ :. .... Punches in jaw have led to legionary House being appointed boxing instructor to his regiment, and last year ho was only beaten on points, by a hotly contested decision, ; for the welterweight-championship .of Morocco. He is the tallest welterweight I have ever seen, ..'standing ■ sft Ilia, and as Jean and hard as a gun-barrel. Eonald House Stayed, -in my tent three hours'and talked all .the time so amusingly .about .his adventures in the Legion that a verbatim report of his conversation would be far moie interesting than any- account I.can give of it. It was odd to notice how French ■words kept on slipping into his conversation.- "With his' curly, light-brown beard, blue eyes, and frank, pleasant face, he is just the type of those English soldiers of fortune who in the nineteenth century were to be found all over the world ' wherever fighting was going on. The specialists, of whom House, being in the drum and fife band, is one, have an easier time than the ordinary rank-and-filo, who have to spend more time in drill or working on the roads. At 11 the midday meal of soup and meat is served. Then conies rest till 2; which, in some" garrisons where . the. heat is great, takes the form of a compulsory siesta under naosq'uitb-eurtaius in the barrack room. ■• From 2 till 5 comes more drill, or road-making, or work at the special jobs, like that of armourer or cobbler, ■to which the men are detailed. Five o'clock brings the evening meal, and '.then, tho men are free till "Lighta out" at 10. . SOON TO RETIRE. .Sergeant Carter looks after the accounts of his company. He is going io retire on a yiension of about £10 <i rdonth in two years' time, and tells me ho will stay in Morocco, where, ho thinks it. will be, easier to find suppiementary employment'than at home. "No harder than, life in. the Indian Army" is his -summary of tho Legion. The unnamed Englishman told me he joined because' he would not pay wife-maintenance, and. tho alternative was prison. Ho Gaid he knew several other Englishmen in. the Legion who ■had found refuge- there from what is admittedly a long-standing injustice to the 'male' sex in our .common law. He nsked nic to write to his mother and tell her that I had seen him, that he was working hard, had had a. rough ■time, bnt had come- through it all right, and that he had always had English friends. - .... -It is a rule of the Legion that no man's name can bo given without his consent —but are tie names by which they are known the right ones? Probably J»ot, for if you join the Legion, no one troubles to verify your age, your name, your address, or your nationality. If you pass tho doctor and sign your enlistment form, these things have ceased to-matter. For the next five years you have no other existence than that of a Foreign Legionary of' France. ' - '