Even before P.C. Wren's Beau Geste signed on, the Foreign Legion has been an endless source of myth, speculation and romance. The reality is even more colourful. Today, 9,000 men drawn from 52 countries wear the kept blanc of this elite fighting force, and are ready to fight and to die for their officers and each other, in the fiercest corners of a troubled world. The Legion has always discouraged journalists and film crews. But now, a Man Alive team led by Desmond Wilcox has been 'in' the Legion, watching them train and fight, examining its mystique, its traditions, its role as a mercenary army and meeting the legionnaires of today- including a 19-year-old Cockney who signed on during a drinking spree in Paris, a 48-year-old Yorkshire-man, now a Legion NCO, the veterans of Dien Bien Phu, of Narvik and men who once fought for Hitler.