Abel Djebelis, a Maltese, winner of the Marathon race between Windsor and London, England, June, 1914. He was wounded at Champagne in 1915 and on the Somme in 1916, by two bullets each time. While waiting to be mustered out at Lyons, July, 1917, he entered a race under the name of Marius, and won from twenty competitors. Discharged for disability.
M. Valsamakis, a Greek, rose to a lieutenancy in the Legion and was decorated with the Legion of Honor. He returned home and was arrested in Athens for participating in the street riots of December, 1916.
Piechkoff Gorky, Russian, son of Maxim Gorky, the novelist, had an arm blown away by a shell. He received the Legion of Honor for bravery and is now attached to the Russian Mission in France.
Bruno and Peppino Garibaldi, Italians, sons of an illustrious father, killed in bayonet attack in Artois, spring of 1915. French admirers have had their profiles, in a medal, fitted into the statue of Garibaldi in the Square Lowendal, Paris. The square is named for one Legionnaire, the statue is built for another.
Eilyaken, an Egyptian, was attending the Conservatory of Music at Brussels when the war broke out. A natural born actor, he burlesqued the military system of the Legion so accurately that the sous-officers managed to keep him in prison in order to silence his cutting sarcasm. He was shot, square through both cheek bones, in the Champagne attack, in 1915, and carried to shelter on the back of an officer. Mustered out in 1916.
An East Indian, name unknown, blew in, like a blaze of glory, between two French military policemen. He was dressed in English khaki—clothes, leggings, spy-glass, map-book, canteen, haversack, spurs, a brand new English rifle, with a pocket full of 100 franc notes.
“What is that, an English soldier?”
“No, a civilian.”
Such he proved to be, a practicing physician in London, who had equipped himself, and arrived at the little village where the Legion was in repose. A stout man, the officer in command, addressed the East Indian,—
“Why don’t you report yourself at headquarters?”