STRANGE DRAMA

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 593, 26 July 1933, Page 7

STRANGE DRAMA

duel to death RIYAL NURSiED TO HEALTH THEN FACED WITH. CHALLENGE. STORY OF FOREIGN LEGION Behind the announcement that the French military anthorities have comnruted the death~'sentence passed on a soldier of the famous Fdreign Legion, lies a strange drama of love, and revenge that began in a • London hairdressing saloon six years ago, and ended in iblood under a broiling African sun. . . iRescuing his bitterest enemy as he lay stricken on a battlefield, the soldier waited patiently nntil his rival's wounds were healed, and then, pistol in hand, they faeed each other in the hazard of a duel. The legionary's bullet found its mark, and now with the debt of vengeance fully paid heisfacing with cairn resignation the prospect of a long incareeration on Devil's Isle. Dodging death at every step, under the pitiless hail of lead from hidden tribesmen, Rene Pascal, corp jral of the French Foreign Legion, st.aggered to a sand-pit in which another legionary lay badly wounded. The stricken man was suffering agonies of thirst and hunger under a blazing. African sun, and was terrified at the prospect of falling a victim .to the cruel, mutilating lcnives of the furies who haunt 'the hattlefields in the hope of finding wounded legionaries to torture. Looking at the huddled, white-faced figure in the pit, Pascal started with astonishment, for he recognised the man he had braved death to aid as his bitterest enemy, whom he had vowed to kill at sight. For a moment or two Pascal debated wh'ether he should turn back and leave his enemy to his fate, but instinctive chivalry prevailed, and, picking up the man, he retraced his steps over the perilous ground separating him from a post of legionaries. Senteneed to Death. This is not a situation from the latcst Hollywood thriller, says a News of the World correspondent, hut a drama of real life culled from the dos. sier of Legionary- Corporal Rene Pascal, which was laid before the supreme military authorities in Paris. Pascal was senteneed to death by court-mar-tial for the murder of Albert Morant, the legionary whose life he had saved at the risk of his own. One has to go back six years to find the heginning of the story. Then Pascal, who was employed in a French bank in London, met a beautiful girl employee in a m'anicure parlour of a London hairdressing establishment. They hecame engaged, and it was understood that they were to marry s soon as Pascal, whose family are well known and much respected in Paris business circles, had perfonned his military service. Yery soon after he had joined his regiment, Pascal noted a change in the tone of the letters from his fiancee, and one day he learned from a comrade in the bank that the girl had fallen under the spell of a former colleagne, Alhert Mor:ant. Later came the news that the girl had been abandoned by Morant. As soon as his military service was completed, Pascal hurried back to London to seek the girl, but she refused to compromise him in the eyes of his family by joining her life to his. Some months • later the girl was found dead from an over-dose of drugs in a Paris flat, and her heartbroken lover resigned his position in the bank and sought forgetfulness in the ranks of the Foreign Legion. Unknown to Pascal, Morant had gone the same way as a sequel to a scandal which involved-his hurried departure from London. Until the day that Pascal risked his life in the desert fate had not brought the two men face to face. How Morant Met his Death. For six months Morant lay between life and death in hospital, and one of the callers was Pascal. On the day that Morant was discharged fit for duty he was met by Pascal, but ths hand the former held out was brushed aside. "That day I saved your life because it was the only way to play the game," declared Pascal. "To-day I am going to take it. Morant looked at the other and realised that it was useless to argue. Accompanied by comrades as secnnds and snectators, the two men

made their way across the sands to the spot where Pascal had found his enemy, and with revolvers provided hy cavalry comrades they stood facing each other. It is alleged that Pascal did not loyally await the signal to fire, but anticipated it by a fraetion of a second, and Morant fell dead with his undischarged revolver still in his hand. On the return to camp Pascal was placed under' arrest, and later the court-martial condemned him to death. In view of the wrong Pascal had sustained at the hands of the other man and his bravery, he was reeommended to mercy at the h'ands of the military chiefs. The authorities, after considering the circumstances, commuted the sentenee to one of ten years' imprisoriment, which Pascal will have to serve in one of the penal settlements of the Devil's Isle group, unless in the meantime the petition being prepared on his •beh'alf results in a free pardon or further mitigation of his sentence.