Fighting for the French Foreign Legion Read online

  The problem being in such temperatures is that the more you drink, the more you sweat, and the more you drink. It is important to try and keep your body temperature as close to that of the ambient temperature – which was why the locals drank so much hot tea. The temptation was to drink cold liquids but that only made us feel worse.

  One afternoon a troupe of baboons appeared at the foot of the hill. There were about a dozen of them and they were being led by the Alpha male in a single column. When they came to a bit of open ground they wanted to cross, the troupe formed a line at the edge of the clearing under relative cover while the ‘boss’ dashed across the gap to the other side. Once over he had a look around before calling for the rest to follow. They dashed over in a line abreast before reforming in their column to continue their journey. Perfect military tactics.

  It was still important to clean our weapons constantly, which also gave us something else to do. We were all tired having been there for five days, but it had to be done. One of the group was cleaning his side arm, and had just reassembled it and put the 9mm ammunition clip back on. Quite how he did it I don’t know, but he fired a round. He was left handed and somehow or other he had the barrel pointing at his left wrist when it went off. He was about to get jumped all over by our sergeant when he saw that he was just sitting there in a state of shock staring at his wrist. We gave him first aid and stopped the bleeding before calling in a helicopter to lift him off the hill back to the fort. It would be morning before he was airlifted to Ndjamina for hospital treatment. He had been lucky and the bullet had passed through his wrist without touching bone or artery. Luckier still, no one else had been injured, considering that he had been sitting in the middle of a group of six.

  When not on the hill, we went on long-range patrols along the camel train routes. On the whole the nomads were friendly people who were always willing to share what little they had with us. They had no loyalties to any particular government and recognized no frontiers. They sought no assistance but were willing to trade for anything that took their fancy. Theirs was a unique combination of worldly experience and innocence. What was happening in the big bad world was of no consequence to them and I envied them their way of life. It was harsh but made you realize that happiness is not something that you can buy. Equality of the sexes is not something known in these parts – all the physical work is done by the women while the men sit around and chat. Even at the well it was the women who were doing all the hard work.

  The well was deep and a donkey was used to haul the water up in a container made out of goat skin. As much water seemed to leak out as was being brought up, but at least it fell back down the well so it wasn’t lost. Before we left the fort we were able to rig them up a more efficient system. The women expressed their gratitude but the men couldn’t see the point. As far as they were concerned, water had been drawn up this way for hundreds of years, so why change now? Perhaps they had a point. When our contraption wore out they would go back to using goat skins anyway.

  When our time at the fort was over we were replaced by another section from our company. We headed south overland to the town of Abéché, a town I would visit many times over the coming years. Again we occupied an old army camp that had seen better days. The camp itself was on the road to the airport, which was home to a larger French Air Force detachment. This one had a tarmac runway and was used as a forward base for a couple of French fighters and as a freight depot. Regular French Army units were also stationed in the town but they were housed in Portakabins complete with air-conditioning.

  We didn’t even have electricity, but the Legion isn’t the Legion for nothing and before the first week was out we had begged, borrowed or stolen most of what we needed to make life more comfortable. Most of our time was spent out on patrol anyway, but that didn’t mean that we had to slum it.

  Sanitation was a big problem and most of us suffered from one stomach problem or another while we were there. No one was exempt. We had dug latrines a couple of hundred yards downwind from our quarters. Two hundred yards is a long way when you are in a hurry, so we managed to spirit up a couple of old bicycles out of nowhere to speed up the journey. Even then some didn’t quite make it and there was a lot of cursing when the bikes hadn’t been returned to the correct place. Despite this we had an easier time there than we had had during the previous month.

  While in Abéché we met some French nuns from a little convent which had been in existence since the Second World War. They were living on the edge of poverty and to this day the Regiment sends them help in the form of clothes and books for the little orphanage they run in the town.

  Abéché is on the frontier with Darfur and has more recently been overrun by refugees from the Sudan crisis. These sisters had been forgotten by their Church and I am sure that they are still working there helping the refugees without any outside help. The ‘big’ charities spend millions on promoting themselves and little else, while there are hundreds of small groups like the sisters in Abéché who just get on with it and get no recognition or thanks for their dedication.

  Tchad is a predominantly Muslim country in the grip of war and poverty, but the Catholic Church has seen fit to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds building an enormous cathedral in the capital which can seat 5,000. It mostly serves the small European and foreign diplomatic communities which at best will see a hundred or so attending Mass on a Sunday. Don’t get me wrong, the other Christian Churches and charities are no better. If the people at home saw what really happens to the money or goods they give for the ‘wider work of the Church’, or other big-name charities, they would be horrified. I have seen 4x4s bought with the money donated by children in the UK being used as military transport with guns and rockets mounted on the back. The ‘Blue Peter’ symbols still painted on the doors.

  We spent the last month of our six-month stay in the south of the country. It was hard to believe that we were in the same country. Desert gave way to lush farmlands in less than 20 miles, but the desert was gaining a few miles every year. Most of the erosion was caused by the indiscriminate cutting of trees and brushwood for fuel – nature did the rest.

  The farmlands quickly turn to forest as you approach the frontier with the Central African Republic, another French protectorate. This whole region had been part of the French colonies until just after the Second World War, but were now independent states which maintained military assistance agreements with France.

  Tchad is the crossroads for racial, cultural and religious differences in Africa. Arabic and black African cultures meet head on and it was an explosive mix. The black Africans in the south were the administrators and mostly Christian. The Arabs of the north were warriors and mostly Muslim. Neither trusted the other and this was the main cause of the military strife that dominated the region. This is exactly the problem in the Sudan which has led to the catastrophic situation in that war-torn country today. Despite all the best intentions of the UN, there is no real solution to the problem and we in the West are unable to solve it. Our idea of democracy means nothing in this part of the world, yet trying to ‘enforce’ it is our idea of the solution.

  My first six months in Africa were at an end and it was time to head back to Calvi for a well-earned rest. On the whole it had been a good introduction to military life at the blunt end, but I was looking forward to a bit of normality for a while, or at least my stomach was.

  CHAPTER 7

  Normality, Legion Style

  Back in Calvi we set about the routine of cleaning and repairing all our equipment before putting it back in store ready for the next mission. France operates a rapid intervention alert system with selected regiments grouped under the umbrella of ‘Force d’Action Rapide’, or FAR as it is more commonly known. There is always a regiment on standby for immediate deployment anywhere in the world with each regiment taking it in turn for a month on what is known as G1.

  Every Legionnaire has two alert kits in store at all times – one for cold climates an
d one for hot – ready for immediate deployment. Within the Regiment, during the month on alert, one of the companies is on two-hour standby twenty-four hours a day. The rest of the Regiment is on six-hour standby. This means that the company on two-hour standby must be able to assemble with all its necessary equipment ready for deployment within two hours of the alert being given, with the rest of the Regiment in six.

  It sounds simple, but in practice it is a huge logistical problem. When an alert is given, all personnel must be on camp within the hour, whether involved in the alert or not, as everyone has a part to play in helping the standby company get ready. There are regular practice alerts to ensure that the call-out system works. If the alert is sounded out of normal daytime working hours, the camp central telephone switchboard calls selected personnel, who then call everyone on their list. This frees up the switchboard on camp to deal with more urgent communications.

  It works well and buses are sent to prearranged pick-up points in town for those who don’t have their own transport. These alert practices are normally held at about 2.00 in the morning and by about 7.00 am the whole Regiment is on parade with all their equipment ready for inspection. The operational staff are given an intervention scenario and have to have the planning for the operation completed in time for the first and second deployments, according to the laid-down timescale. The important thing is that no one knows if the alert is an exercise or not, except for the most senior officers. If it is an exercise, stand down doesn’t take place until about ten hours into the alert, then everything has to be put back into storage. This can take the rest of the day as all the equipment has to be cleaned and repacked ready for the real thing which could happen five minutes after everything is back to normal.

  With everything stored away after our trip to Africa, we were given three weeks’ leave. Normally legionnaires with less than a full year’s service are not permitted to leave the island, but due to the circumstances we were allowed to take our leave in mainland France, one condition being that we had to stay in France. We didn’t have passports anyway which would normally have ensured that this instruction was obeyed.

  Apart from the week’s leave in Calvi before we left for Tchad, this was my first real rest since joining in Paris in June 1983. I had my military ID card but with no other documents, I could not return to the UK in theory, nor did I have any civilian clothing. Rules are rules, but are there to be flaunted, and my friends and I had no intention of staying in France. We were homeward bound.

  We flew from Calvi to Paris on a scheduled flight, but by the time we got into the centre of Paris it was after six in the evening and the shops were starting to close. We had been told by other Brits that the easiest way to get back to the UK was by overnight ferry from Dunkirk to Dover. The train was due to leave at seven which did not give us much time to shop for some civilian clothing. We found a small clothes shop near the station and were able to buy the basics for a quick change.

  One of my friends was a Canadian who had family living on the Isle of Man. He rushed into a shoe shop, bought the first pair of shoes he saw in his size, threw them in the box, paid for them and rushed to the station. We made it by the skin of our teeth onto the train and got into an empty compartment. We were all feeling good as we changed into our new civilian clothes, until there was a verbal explosion from the Canadian. In his haste to buy his shoes he had not noticed that he had bought two left shoes. He was so angry with himself that he threw them out of the window, which luckily was open at the time.

  When we got to Dunkirk we had about an hour to spare before the ferry sailed at midnight. To our surprise the Police on passport control did not bat an eye when we presented our military ID cards, nor did they ask us for passports. They knew from our build, haircuts and tans exactly who we were and waved us through to board the ship. So far so good.

  It was a slow crossing and we slept on the reclining lounge chairs for most of the voyage. We woke early, shaved and had some breakfast before going on deck to watch the ship enter Dover harbour. Now we had to face the next obstacle: UK passport control. The worst that could happen was that we would be sent back.

  The ship docked at 6.00 am and we prepared to present ourselves at passport control. I had to admit that we stood out from the crowd. We seemed to be expected and were shown into a side room where we were met by two uniformed police officers and a plain-clothes officer from Special Branch.

  It took about half an hour for them to check our identities but there was no other problem and we were allowed to catch the next train to London. They were used to legionnaires coming back into the country via Dover – in fact they preferred it and asked us to pass on the word to any others that this was the way they should come if they did not have their passports.

  Before going our separate ways we agreed to meet up in London for the trip back to France. I got the first train to Glasgow and went straight to the passport office to apply for a replacement.

  I told them that I had misplaced my existing one, but didn’t think that I had lost it and needed an urgent replacement for my work. After waiting a couple of hours I handed over the appropriate fee and was issued with a new one.

  During my absence my mother had moved to Aberdeen to be near my brother and his family, so that was where I headed. I had written to her a couple of times from Tchad but had not expected a reply. Despite everything the reunion passed well enough, but I still spent more time at my brother’s house with my sister-in-law than I did with my mother.

  By the end of the second week I was ready to make the journey back to France. I realized that I had moved on and that I had no real friends here who shared my interests any more. My Legion friends and I met up in London as planned and found that we had all more or less felt the same way, so were happy enough to be heading back to France. We had a couple of fun days together in Paris where we met up with other members of the Regiment and I got to know some of the better non-tourist bars, which over the years have been frequented by legionnaires. They are decorated with photographs and souvenirs supplied by legionnaires passing through Paris and reflected the multi-national, multi-racial unique mix that is the Legion.

  We all changed back into uniform at the airport before the flight back to Calvi, which was almost all legionnaires who, although in high spirits, were well behaved and entertained the few civilians on board to a repertoire of Legion songs. These were, after all, young men with enormous energy who need to be doing something out of the ordinary all the time to keep them going.

  I wanted to improve my French and to develop management skills, so I put myself forward for a three-month administration course. This was held at the 2eme REI (2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment) in Nimes, France. There was a place available on the course starting in September so I took it.

  The 2eme REI was a fully mechanized infantry regiment. At that time it was the first Legion regiment to be equipped with the new light-armoured personnel carriers, which are capable of making an amphibious crossing. Some of the VABs (Vehicule Avant Blinde) were equipped with 20mm automatic cannon which were fired from inside the vehicle. The front armour is heavy enough to withstand machine-gun rounds or a rocket attack. They have four-wheel independent drive and suspension making them faster and more manoeuvrable than an equivalent tracked vehicle. They are not light at just over 11 tons but offer excellent protection for transporting a combat group.

  The city of Nimes is famous for two things. The first is its Roman heritage and magnificent coliseum in the centre of the town, where gladiators from the Roman legions would have fought. Its second claim to fame is being the home of the famous Lacoste clothing company.

  I enjoyed my three months there and had the company of the Irish Caporal from my group, who was also on the course. I don’t know how much I learned but I had a great time. All French military personnel are issued with travel passes which entitle you to a 75 per cent reduction on public transport, including the wonderful high-speed trains that run the length and breadth of
the country.

  We had every weekend off and as Nimes is well served by the TGV express trains, we could be whipped off to Paris in three hours, and what was more, they ran on time and were spotless. When the timetable says that a train will arrive at a given time and stop for three minutes, that is exactly what it does.

  We visited Avignon, Marseille, Paris and all stops north during our stay, and really got to know a lot about this beautiful country – and I was being paid at the same time. The only mishap I had during the course was that I managed to break a finger playing rugby, but apart from that I had a great time.

  Before we knew it we were back in Calvi in time for Christmas. I was now the proud holder of my first qualification: a ‘Certificate Technique Elimentaire’ in administration management. I had been in the Legion for just over a year when I was promoted to ‘Legionnaire Première Classe’ and was given my first stripe. I received a pay rise for both the qualification and rank, I felt great and had a wonderful Christmas.

  As already mentioned, France has several military cooperation treaties with its former colonies. Apart from the opportunity of seeing and working in another part of the world, it paid well. When on an overseas tour we received two and a half times our normal pay, which was very nice for the bank balance as we had nothing to spend it on while on operations. Everything was provided for, including in our off-duty time to keep us entertained. Normally there was nowhere for us to go outside the base, but there were videos in the evenings and mess costs were next to nothing. On top of that, operational patrols let you see the remoter parts of these countries that have no access for tourists – had there been, such visits would have cost a fortune.