The Jasper news., 1918-08-08
CHAPTER ~.
In the Foreign Legion.
P

mis- time was determined to en-.
list. So, when we landed at st. Ma
zalre, drew my pay from the Vir.
glnian and, after spending week
with my grandmother, l went out and
asked the first gendarme | met where
the enlistment station was. / had to
argue with him some time before he
would even direct me to 1t. OF course
! had no passport and this made him
suspicious of me.
The officer In charge of the station
was no warmer in his welcome than
the gendarme, and this surprised me,
because Murray and Brown had no
trouble at all in joining. The French,
of course, often sneak of the Foreign
Legion as "the convicts," because so
many leglonaries are wanted by the
police of their respective countries,
but criminal record never had been
bar to service with the legion, and
did not see why 1t should be now-if
they suspected me of having one.
had heard there were not q few Ger
mans in the legion-later on / became
me, no Alsatian ever fought harder
against the Huns than these former
Deutschlanders did 1t occurred to
me then that If they thought l was
a German, because had no passport,
| might have to prove | had been In
trouble with the kaiser's crew before
= they would accept me. ] do not know
what the real trouble was, but solved
the problem by showing them my dis
charge papers from the American
navy. Even then, they were suspicious
because they thought / was too young
to have been G. =. o. When they
challenged me on this point, said
would prove 1t to them by taking an
examination.
They examined me very carefully
in English, although l know enough
French to get by on n subject like
gunnery. But foreign officers are yer!
proud of their knowledge of English
and most of them can speak it-and
think this one wanted to show off, q!
you might say. Anyway, passed m!
examination without any trouble
was accepted for service in the For
eign Legion and received my commits
sion as gunner, dated Friday, Januar!
/, 1915.
There is no use In my describing tn,
Foreign Legion. 1t is one of the mos
famous fighting organizations in tn
world, and has made wonderful rec
ord during the war, When Joined l.,
Legion, 1t numbered about 10000 men
Today 1t has less than 5000. The,
say that since August, 1914, the legiol
has been wiped out three times, an,
that there are only few men still II
service who belonged to the orlgina
legion. l believe 1t to be true. Ii
January of this year the French gov
crnment decided to let the legion die
/ was sorry to hear 1t. The legion
naires were fine body of men, an,
wonderful fighters. But the who'll
civilized world is now fighting tn
Huns, and Americans do not have I,
enlist with the French or the Limey
any longer.
But one thing about the legion, tina
] find many people do not know, Is tina
the legionnalres are used for eithe
land or sea service. They are sent whel
ever they can be used. do not knoy
whether this was the case before tn
present war-I think not-but In hi
time, many of the men were put o.
ships. Most people, however, have tn
idea that they are only used In the In
fantry.
With my commission as gunner,
received orders to go to Brest and joi
the dreadnaught Cassard. This al
slgnment tickled me, for my pal Mul
ray was aboard, and had expecte
trouble in transferring to his ship /
case / was assigned elsewhere. w
had framed 1t up to stick together q
long as we could. We did, too.
Murray was ms glad as was whe
] came aboard, and he told me he ha
heard Brown, our other pal. had bee
made a sergeant In another regimen
of the legion.
We were both surprised at some {
the differences between the Frenc
navy and ours, but after we got use
to Ii, we thought many of their GU
toms improvements over ours. But "
could not get used to 1t, at first. IL