ONE of the strangest of the many personal romances which the war has
brought is the tale of a man who, dismissed from the British Army
by court martial, redeemed himself through service with that most
heterogeneous of organizations, the French Foreign Legion. His name was
John F. Elkington, and he had held an honored post for more than thirty
years. Then, just as his regiment, in the closing months of 1914, was
going into the fighting on the Western front, he was cashiered for an
unrevealed error and deprived of the opportunity to serve his country.
Heavy with disgrace, he disappeared, and for a long time no one knew
what had become of him. Some even went so far as to surmise that he had
committed suicide, until finally he turned up as an enlisted soldier in
the Foreign Legion. In their ranks he went into the conflict to redeem
himself. Today, says the New York _Herald_, he is back in England. He
will never fight again, for he has practically lost the use of his
knees from wounds. But he is perhaps the happiest man in England, and
the account tells why, explaining:
Pinned on his breast are two of the coveted honors of France—the
Military Medal and the Military Cross—but most valued possession of
all is a bit of paper which obliterates the errors of the past—a
proclamation from the official London _Gazette_ announcing that the
King has “graciously approved the reinstatement of John Ford Elkington
in the rank of lieutenant-colonel, with his previous seniority, in
consequence of his gallant conduct while serving in the ranks of the
Foreign Legion of the French Army.”
Not only has Colonel Elkington been restored to the Army, but he has
been reappointed in his old regiment, the Royal Warwickshires, in which
his father served before him.
In the same London _Gazette_, at the end of October, 1914, had appeared
the crushing announcement that Elkington had been cashiered by sentence
of general court martial. What his error was did not appear at the
time, and has not been alluded to in his returned hour of honor. It
was a court martial at the front at a time when the first rush of war
was engulfing Europe and little time could be wasted upon an incident
of that sort. The charge, it is now stated, did not reflect in any way
upon the officer’s personal courage.
But with fallen fortunes he passed quietly out of the Army and enlisted
in the Legion—that corps where thousands of brave but broken men have
found a shelter, and now and then an opportunity to make themselves
whole again.
Colonel Elkington did not pass unscathed through fire. His fighting
days are ended. His knees are shattered and he walks heavily upon two
sticks.
“They are just fragments from France,” he said of those wounded knees,
and smiled in happy reminiscence of all they meant.
“It is wonderful to feel,” said Colonel Elkington, “that once again I
have the confidence of my King and my country. I am afraid my career in
the field is ended, but I must not complain.”
Colonel Elkington made no attempt to cloak his name or his former Army
service when he entered the ranks of the Legion.
“Why shouldn’t I be a private?” he asked. “It is an honor for any man
to serve in the ranks of that famous corps. Like many of the other
boys, I had a debt to pay. Now it is paid.”
The press of London is unanimous in welcoming the old soldier back
into his former rank. One of them, _The Evening Standard_, contains
the account of how he went about enlisting for France when he saw he
would best leave London. It is written by a personal friend of Colonel
Elkington, with all the vividness and sympathy of an actual observer of
the incidents detailed. We are told:
“Late in October, 1914, I met him, his Army career apparently ruined.
He had told the truth, which told against him; but in the moment when
many men would have sunk, broken and despairing, he bore himself as he
was and as he is today, a very gallant gentleman. He had been cashiered
and dismissed from the service for conduct which, in the judgment of
the court martial, rendered him unfit and incapable of serving his
sovereign in the future in any military capacity. The London _Gazette_
came out on October 14, 1914, recording the fact, and it became known
to his many friends. For over thirty years he had served, and for
distinguished service wore the Queen’s medal with four clasps after
the Boer War. He went to France with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment at
the outbreak of this conflict. His chance had come after twenty-eight
years.”
During the first terrible two months he had done splendid work. A
moment sufficient to try the discretion of any officer arrived. He
made his mistake. He told his story to the general court martial. He
vanished—home; and the London _Gazette_ had the following War-Office
announcement:
“Royal Warwickshire Regiment.—Lieutenant-Colonel John F. Elkington is
cashiered by sentence of a general court martial. Dated September 14,
1914.”
He recognized at once, as he sat with me, what this meant. We chatted
about various projects, and at last he said, “There is still the
Foreign Legion. What do you say?”
Being acquainted with it, I told him what I knew; how it was the
“refuge” for men of broken reputations; how it contained Italians,
Germans, Englishmen, Russians, and others who had broken or shattered
careers; the way to set about joining it by going to the recruiting
office at——; how the only requirement was physical fitness; that no
questions would be asked; that I doubted if he would like all his
comrades; that the discipline was very severe; that he might be sent
to Algiers; that he would find all kinds of men in this flotsam—men of
education and culture, perhaps scoundrels and blackguards as well; but
he would soon discover perfect discipline.
Now for a man of his age to smile as he did, to set out on the bottom
rung of the ladder as a ranker in a strange army, among strangers,
leaving all behind him that he held dear, was a great act of moral
courage. We heard of him at intervals, but such messages as dribbled
through to his friends were laconic. We heard also he had been at this
place and that, and that he was well and apparently doing well. That
he had been repeatedly in serious action of recent months we also
knew, and then came the news that he had won the coveted _Médaillé
Militaire_—and more, that it was for gallant service. A curious
distinction it is in some ways. Any meritorious service may win it;
but not all ranks can get it. A _generalissimo_ like General Joffre
or Sir Douglas Haig may wear it for high strategy and tactics, and a
non-commissioned officer or private may win and wear it for gallantry
or other distinction. But no officer below a _generalissimo_ can gain
it. This distinction Elkington won. We all felt he had made good in the
Legion, where death is near at all times, and we waited.
Today’s _Gazette_ announcement has given all who knew him the greatest
pleasure. He has told none of them for what particular act he received
the coveted medal—just like Jack Elkington’s modesty.
But, as soon as he arrived home in England, the interviewers went
after him hot and heavy. He found it all very boresome, for, now
that the affair was over, he could see no use in talking about it to
everybody. A reporter for _The Daily Chronicle_, however, managed to
get what is probably the most satisfactory interview with him and one
which shows to best advantage the peculiar psychology of this man who
has experienced so many different sides of life. The interviewer, in
telling of their conversation, portrays the Colonel as saying:
“Complaint? Good Lord, no! The whole thing was my own fault. I got
what I deserved, and I had no kick against anyone. It was just ‘Carry
on!’”
Brave words from a brave man—a man who has proved his bravery and
worth in what surely were as heartrending circumstances as ever any
man had to face. My first sight of the Man Who Has Made Good was as he
descended the stairs, painfully and with the aid of two sticks, into
the hall of his lovely old home by the river at Pangbourne. It is a
house which the great Warren Hastings once called home also.
Very genial, very content, I found the man whose name today is on
everyone’s lips; but very reticent also, with the reticence natural to
the brave man who has achieved his aim and, having achieved it, does
not wish it talked of.
“And now,” I suggested, “you have again got what you deserve?”
Colonel Elkington drew a long breath. “I hope so,” he said, at length,
very quietly. “I have got my name back again, I hope cleared. That is
what a man would care for most, isn’t it?”
“There is always a place in the Foreign Legion for someone who is down
in the world,” he told me. “Directly after the court martial, when the
result appeared in the papers, I said I must do something; that I could
not sit at home doing nothing, and that as I could not serve England I
would serve France. Yes, I did offer my services again to England, but
it is military law that no man who has been cashiered can be employed
again for the King while the sentence stands. So there was nothing for
it but the Foreign Legion—that home for the fallen man.”
Of that strange and famous corps Colonel Elkington cannot speak without
a glint of pride in his keen blue eyes. Splendid men, the best in the
world, he calls them, “and every one was as kind as possible to me.”
Many there were who had become legionaries because they, too, had
failed elsewhere, “lost dogs like myself,” the Colonel called them;
but the majority of the men with whom he served were there because
there was fighting to be done, because fighting was second nature to
them, and because there was a cause to be fought for. The officers he
describes as the “nicest fellows in the world and splendid leaders.”
When Colonel Elkington first joined there were many Englishmen included
in its ranks, but most of these subsequently transferred to British
regiments. He enlisted in his own name, but none knew his story, and
often he was questioned as to his reason for not transferring—“and I
had to pitch them the tale.”
He kept away from British soldiers as much as possible, “but one day
someone shouted my name. I remember I was just about to wash in a
stream when a staff motor drove by and an officer waved his hand and
called out. But I pretended not to hear and turned away....
“I don’t think that the men in the Legion fear anything,” he said. “I
never saw such men, and I think in the attack at Champaigne they were
perfectly wonderful. I never saw such a cool lot in my life as when
they went forward to face the German fire then. It was a great fight;
they were all out for blood, and, though they were almost cut up there,
they got the German trenches.”
The time he was recognized, as detailed above, was the only one. At no
other time did any of his comrades suspect his identity, or else, if
they did, they were consideration itself in keeping it to themselves.
Of this recognition and some of his subsequent experiences, the London
_Times_ remarks, speaking of its own interview with him:
It was the only voice from the past that came to him, and he took it as
such. A few minutes afterward he was stepping it out heel and toe along
the dusty road, a private in the Legion.
Shot in the leg, Colonel Elkington spent ten months in hospital and
eight months on his back. This was in the Hôpital Civil at Grenoble.
He could not say enough for the wonderful treatment that was given him
there. They fought to save his life, and when they had won that fight,
they started to save his leg from amputation. The head of the hospital
was a Major Termier, a splendid surgeon, and he operated eight times
and finally succeeded in saving the damaged limb. When he was first in
hospital neither the patients nor any of the hospital staff knew what
he was or what he had done. Elkington himself got an inkling of his
good fortune at Christmas when he heard of his recommendation for the
_Croix de Guerre_.
“Perhaps that helped me to get better,” he said. “The medals are over
there on the mantelpiece.” I went over to where there were two glass
cases hanging on the wall. “No, not those; those are my father’s and my
grandfather’s.” He showed me the medals, and on the ribbon of the cross
there was the little bronze palm-branch which doubles the worth of the
medal.
When he was wounded Dr. Wheeler gave him a stiff dose of laudanum, but
he lay for thirteen hours until he saw a French patrol passing. He was
then 100 yards short of the German second line of trenches, for this
was in the Champaigne Battle, on September 28, when the French made a
magnificent advance.
It was difficult to get Colonel Elkington to talk about himself. As his
wife says, he has a horror of advertisement, and a photographer who
ambushed him outside his own lodge-gates yesterday made him feel more
nervous than when he was charging for the machine gun that wounded him.
To say he was happy would be to write a platitude. He is the happiest
man in England. He is now recuperating and receiving treatment, and he
hopes that he will soon be able to walk more than the 100 yards that
taxes his strength to the utmost at present.