ESCAPE FROM LEGION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16923, 11 April 1929, Page 4

ESCAPE FROM LEGION

A TALE OF HARDSHIPS DARED SHARKS FOR FREEDOM LONDON, Feh. 21. Leaping overboard from a steamship in a shark-infested sea at Colombo, C. Iv. Norton, formerly of the 7th Battalion Ist British Columbia Regiment, who fought at P:\ssehendaele, made a sensational escape from the French Foreign Legion. His adventures made a thrilling talc which lie related in London to-day. “F spent some time after the war serving as a greaser in a French steamer and then at Dunkirk about, seven years ago when the American seamen’s strike deprived me of work, 1 enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. That was worse than anything I ever went through at Passchendaele. They treat you like, a dog. and their sole aim seems to he to make you a brute instead of a man. LIFE WAS UNBEARABLE “They sent me first to Morocco and there life became unbearable. Wo fell sick and had to do military duties. Nd doctor ever certified me unfit for duty, and when I collapsed one day on duty they gave me the alternative of enlisting for a further term in the Legion or of going to prison for 10 years. 1 chose re-enlistment, and they sent me to French Indo-China, which has a torrid climate, and where the French are hated by the natives. There we were sent upcountry, 300 of us, and of that number when our service expired only 128 were left. We were brought hack to Haiphong, the port of IndoChina, and shipped to Europe with the intention of resuming duty in Morocco. DETERMINED TO ESCAPE “But all the time on the voyage out and back I had determined to escape. Every day 1 used to stand upon the bulwarks and look out at every port or at the horizon until everyone on board thought it was a crank of mine. “So when we called in at Colombo no one noticed two Germans and myself stand in our old way on the bulwarks as the transport was 'leaving the harbor. Hundreds of yards from the great breakwater over which the Indian Ocean pours a great flood of breakers, wo jumped. We knew the sea. was lull of sharks and had not gone 200 yards before one of the Germans was dragged under. The sharks tore him to pieces while we swam on with our hearts in our mouths. We could do nothing for the poor devil. When we reached the breakwater we found we could not get a handhold to climb out of the water, but fortunately a pilot boat saw us and took us aboard. “CUSHY” JOB IN PRISON “We were taken to prison in Colombo and T had a ‘cushy’ job there superintending coolie sweepers. It was the pleasantest time I’ve had since I joined the Legion.” Norton said he was imprisoned at Colombo because he had come ashore without a passport. However, the British Empire Service League befriended him and enabled him to return to England. “I made four attempts to escape all told.” said Norton, who is a young, clean-shaven and clear-eyed soldier type, is direct in speech and unaware of anything especially daring in his adventures. PUNISHED LIKE! AN ANIMAL “They caught me and punished mo like an animal,” he continued. “Once they tied me up in Indo-China by the bands and feet and left me all night, on a hav rack. Next morning when they untied me, my hands had swollen like hams. 'Then they gave me 90 days in the clink and pack drill in the tropical sun. After T left Indo-China, 20 others deserted from the Legion. The Annamese helped them, and when one' died from hardship, thew ga v c him a magnificent military funeral. You, could see that the, Annamese had no love for the French or for the Foreign Legion.” Norton is returning home immediately, working his Atlantic passage. He is grateful for the help given him at Colombo and London by the authorities. “Every man is brave in the Legion because ’he is desperate,” he said in conclusion. "Yon want to get out of it as soon as you’ve hit it. As for me, I’m through.”