The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-12-10

officers by his excellent work and gal
 lart bearing, most distinguished him self and won high honors. i On the first day of great battle
 the foreign legion sacrificed them
 selves with reckless bravery The ex- Warwickshire officer distinguished l himself on a field where valor was common" He was one of a handful of ! men who attacked, took and held 9 l point of high importance. They hung | on desperately for four days. On Sep l tember 28 the legion again advanced. | They took a German front line trench
 and then another The Germans turned or the machine guns and swept the 1 field. Ellington ahead of them all, was shot just below the right knee. His comrades went on and he lay on | the battlefield helpless. The legion's coiors were twice decorated during
 that period a rare distinction for any
 regiment.
 | Before he could be taken to the hos pital his wound became septic. He
 was laid in a bed at Grenoble and
 there he remained for 10 long months while French nurses and doctors
 fought for the life of this gallant Eng
 lishman. Finally he came out with
 one leg an inch and half shorter 1 than the other.
 When he went into the hospital Col
 onel Ellington carried only his wound
 and the satisfaction of having done his 1 bis. When he came out he wore the | French military medal and the Croix de | Guerre, conferred upon him by a staff | officer sent direct from General Jof- | Ire to whose attention the gallant i work of Colonel Ellington had been 1 called
 l Colonel Ellington then returned to 1 his beautiful English home. One morn I ing he picked up his newspaper and | was astounded to read that he, John | Ford Ellington, cashiered on such
 andsuch a date, had been restored to | his rank with full honors There was
 probably no happier man in the world
 that day.
 1 Later came the summons to Buck | ingham palace, the final honor, the
 tha nlxs of his sovereign.
 1 Colonel Ellington is willing to tell
 his story, except the part about win | hing the French decora tions. 1 q was cashiered," he said, "and about fortnight after the notice ap-
 peared in the papers I was i'll the for | eign legion, a private. Under my own 1 name? Of course. It would not have l done for me to take another mans
 name Now I am afraid my career in 1 tho field is at an end, but I must not
 complain as l had 22 months work with a regiment that has sgained the
 reputation of having the finest troops ! in the world.
 | "Very few Englishmen have even a | remote idea of it's constitution and
 methods. The senior officers are prac-
 tically without exception French, but l the rank and file are drawn from ev-
 cry part of the globe. We had the Turk standing shoulder to shoulder 1 with an Armenian, a strange comblna- 1 tion indeed in view of their relations
 in the near east.
 "There was an American with me called Wheeler, a famous surgeon. He l came over and joined the French Red 1 Cross. He had tired of that and joined ] the legion. I met him first marching
 up to the front. I thought he was d 1 tramp, and expect he thought was | one. When we got to Lyons l went | down to have a meal in the, big ho- | tel There I saw the American sit- l ting over a big dinner and he saw me. I From that time on we were friends. We saw that neither was a ramp We marched together, ate together and be- ! came great pals. He was a fine chap l and did not know what fear was ana | helped to make it a lot easier for me. | We went into action together and Tell l together, both shot in the leg. He gave me first aid and looking at my leg, said, T say, old man, they will have | to take that off Then he fainted across my leg and hurt me like the devil But he saved my life. He Is home again. He got the Cro1X de Guerre 1 but was lamed and no use for further service, so he was invalided out. Colonel Ellington was asKeo II ne were ever recognized.
 s.On1v once, he said "We were march ing in the Champagne country and had just stopped to drink at stream when a motor went by. Someone in the car called out, eHullo, Ellington! pretended rot to hear and soon after the motor car disappeared"
 Last Christmas Colonel Ellington got q. hint that he was to be given the Croix de Guerre. He was then in hospital.
 "Perhaps that helped me to get bet ter" he said.
 LAY FOR 13 HOURS
 Colonel Ellington tells that he lay 13 hours in the field before a French patrol passed He was within a hundred yards of the German second line trenches. His American friend, pr. Wheeler, gave him stiff dose of laudanum.
 Colonel Elkington's admiration for the Foreign Legion is unbounded.
 "As I learned to know my comrades, he said, q saw that some of them at least were in the same boat as myself, without a name, without anything; man, as it were, who had become merely a number.
 CT hope I was one of the worst char acters in the legion. Good fellows they all were, the best fellows in the world, believe me- with officers kind and cheery. There were lot of English in the le- zion at one time, but they were after wards all transferred to the English army.
 Sometimes my comrades asked me why I did not join up with my own countrymen. I put them off with a kind of answer that I suppose suited. The truth--well, that was my affair, my se- cret.
 ''I carried on, taking my halfpenny day like the rest, and very glad when it was raised to 21ad-not that I was de- pendent on it. but I felt I was earning it. There were all sorts and conditions of men in the legion-rich Americans, occasionally millionaire, men all out for blood, loving fighting for the sake of fighting, happy only when scrapping.
 Through the long months we all car ried on-a happy go-lucl<y band, nearly exterminated in the fierce battle of Champagne, hotly tested in the battle. of Arras. Many brave deeds l saw done, but ask me to tell you of any particu- lar incident and I am done. The private has no time to see what is happening around him. His one idea is to get ahead, to kill and not be killed. I saw the fel- lows pitching into it cool as cucumpers, dare-devils all, as brave lot as you can imagine. but what any one or them did don't ask me.
 ssThere were times when relief from stress came when there were jolly little dinners. have seen legionnaires Official pay sou a day) do in a tive-pound note almost in a twinkling of the eye