LIFE IN FOREIGN LEGION

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1930, Page 7

LIFE IN FOREIGN LEGION

AUCKLANDER’S VIVID STORY. IMPOSSIBLE RISKS TAKEN. “Mutiny in the Foreign Legion and its cause, you ask? Or, perhaps lack of water, or food, perhaps too much continued active service, or perhaps the ‘caffard.’ It ish difficult to say, but life out there is hard, and ‘caffard’ is common.” It is some sixteen years, says the Auckland Star, since the speaker was out in Morocco, serving in the Foreign Legion, and he says things have changed since pre-war days. . “It seems to me things have been exaggerated,” said the former member of the Legion, who lives in Auckland. “It seems scarcely likely that an entire battalion could have risen.” He added that since the war there had been a large influx of Russians to the Legion, and it was possible that Soviet propaganda had something to do with the matter. “Conditions have changed, and for the better,” he said. “When I was in the Legion we used to get one sou—a halfpenny—a day. Now, I believe, they receive about a franc. Many tales get about concerning the life in the Legion, and people get false ideas of. the life out there. In the main the books written about it are true, but the writers over-colour their stories. For instance, I have read about men lying in the desert without a hat. That is absurd. A man would be mad in half a day.” As for the food, it was plain, but there was enough of it.’ There must have been for the Legion to hold the name of the finest body of walkers in the world. They walk, he said, five kilometres, or about 3j miles, an hour all day, carrying all their gear. He believed they were the finest body of fighters in the world. “What did death matter to them?” he asked. “They have all to gain and nothing, literally nothing, to lose.” The Legion held many of the outcasts from society, who probably joined in desperation, and continuea to do everything from desperation. Besides, flgfiting meant not only relief from the terrible monotony of barrack life, but the chance of loot to supplement their pay. If a village refused to pay its taxes the Legion would be sent aloriw to bring the chiefs to their senses. In the village, as well as well-aimed rifles, there would be skins, and wine and gold pieces. These could be sold for money, which, whatever its amount, was wealth to those whose pay was a sou a day. In comparison with those things death weighed but lightly indeed in the balance.

“When a recruit joins -the Legion asks no questions. If he hag a sound heart, a healthy body and good teeth a man can give what age he likes, and he can say his name is whatever first comes into his head. The Legion leaves all to be said until he tries to escape;” Escape, he said, was most difficult, although he managed it. But the monotony of life was such that the legionnaires took impossible chances. Some of them seized the opportunity offered by transhipment to another part of the world. When a fair distance from the land they would jump overboard and chance the sharks. One man he knew deserted and hid in a barrel on the wharves for several days. He eventually got away by stowing away on a British cargo vessel. It was very largely a question of luck, and exceptionally good luck. He spoke of the risks run by those who ■ fled ■ into i the desert. Some of them,' afflicted with > the “caffard,” the madness! brought on by the heat and the utter flamenes sof things, would go

off and run the gauntlet of death by horrible torture by the Arabs on the one hand, and of death by thirst on the other. It was a question which was the more merciful.

When the men went to sleep at night they used to tie their rifle straps to their wrists to prevent them being stolen by the marauding tribes. It was not unknown for an Arab to take the rifle and the wrist with it.