Bob Scanlon, professional boxer, soldier of the Legion, kept having narrow escapes from death so often that he became a mascot of good luck. In civilian life he had whipped Mar-Robert, Marthenon, and Joe Choynski—even the Boche shells respected him! He changed from the Foreign Legion into the 170th, then went into the machine gun company. He lost his good luck. He found a piece of shell which ripped him up badly. Two years later, in September, 1917, in Bordeaux, coming back to his old gait, he gave a boxing exhibition with Lurline, the French Champion.
Laurence Scanlon, wounded in the Foreign Legion, went into Aviation, dropped his aeroplane through, and into, a cook-house. His captain running, expecting to find a corpse, met Scanlon coming out of the door, who saluted and reported himself present,—“It is I, mon capitaine, just arrived.”
John Brown, American citizen, got mixed up with a shell explosion in the September attack in Champagne, in 1915. All his comrades were killed; but this tough nut has just been blown about till he is bent double and one eye is almost gone. He has been in eleven hospitals during twenty-three months. In August, 1917, he was ordered to go to regimental depot for two months “Inapt.” The regimental doctors gave him an examination, then sent him back to hospital.
F. Capdevielle, New Yorker, splendid fellow, after a year in the Foreign Legion changed to the 170th, where he rose to be sergeant. But a young man, he has a great record for longevity, having been through the successive attacks of the two regiments volonté, without receiving a scratch, though he was used up physically in the spring of 1917, and put in a couple of months recuperating in Paris. He was decorated for gallantry, at Verdun, in the spring of 1916.
Tony Pollet, champion boxer, from Corona, New York, came to America with his parents, had his first papers—was the tallest, best-built man in his company—a terror on wrong doers—in social life as gentle as a woman. The boxing match between him and Bob Scanlon at Auxelle Bas, Alsace, will pass down in the traditions of the Legion for all time.
Later Tony whipped the three cooks. He was put in charge of the kitchen for punishment; but he got into disgrace again because the Legionnaires caught a pet cat, skinned it and threw it into the soup.
Living on his income of one cent a day, as he had no money, too proud to expose his financial condition, he did not go to Paris, July 4, 1915, but suffered his martyrdom in silence. Wounded in Champagne in 1915, also on the Somme in 1916, when permission came for a furlough in America, he had forty-two cents. He stowed away on a Trans-Atlantic steamer to New York, where the authorities claimed, he was not an American. If he had declared his intention to be an American, he had lost the evidence of it. So they locked him up two days at Ellis Island.
When in hospital one night, he stole out to see his girl, caught, and standing before the medical board, who threatened to revoke his convalescence, he replied hotly—“You do that, and I will make you more trouble than you can shake off the rest of your life. You must not think you are handling a Legionnaire from Africa now;—I will show you what a real American Legionnaire can do!” The old Colonel, a judge of men, spoke up;—“Silence yourself. Attention, eyes front, about face, forward march.” Tony walked away; but he got his furlough.
George Peixotto, painter by profession, brother of the President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris, joined the Foreign Legion and was detailed to the 22nd artillery. Now, instead of making life-like figures, he makes figures lifeless!
Bullard. After the Champagne attack, in 1915, was changed from the Legion to the 170th, then again into the Aviation. A busy man, he managed to dodge the Boche bouquets, and, so far, he has kept right side up with care. Always likes to have Old Glory in sight.