Truth is stranger than fiction, and many of the coincidences of real life are truly stranger than the most daring imaginings of the fictionist. Now, I, Major Michael Malet-Marsac, happened at the moment to be thinking of my dear and deeply lamented friend John Ross-Ellison, and to be pondering, for the thousandth time, his extraordinary life and more extraordinary death. Nor had I the very faintest notion that the Subedar-Major had ever heard of such a person, much less that he was actually his own brother, or, to be exact, his half-brother. You see I had known Ross-Ellison intimately as one only can know the man with whom one has worked, soldiered, suffered, and faced death. Not only had I known, admired and respected him—I had loved him. There is no other word for it; I loved him as a brother loves a brother, as a son loves his father, as the fighting-man loves the born leader of fighting-men: I loved him as Jonathan loved David. Indeed it was actually a case of "passing the love of women" for although he killed Cleopatra Dearman, the only woman for whom I ever cared, I fear I have forgiven him and almost forgotten her. But to return to the Subedar-Major. "Peace, fool! Art blind as Ibrahim Mahmud the Weeper," growled that burly Native Officer as the zealous and over-anxious young sentry cried out and pointed to where, in the moonlight, the returning reconnoitring-patrol was to be seen as it emerged from the lye-bushes of the dry river-bed.
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Percival Christopher Wren is best known as a novelist, publishing twenty-eight novels from 1912 to 1941, the most famous of which being Beau Geste (1924). Wren also published seven short story collections: Stepsons of France (1917), The Young Stagers (1917), Good Gestes (1929), Flawed Blades (1933), Port o' Missing Men (1934), Rough Shooting (1938), and Odd-But Even So (1941). These short story collections contained a total of 116 stories. There were also two omnibus collections published, Stories of the Foreign Legion (1947) and Dead Men's Boots (1949), containing stories taken from Stepsons of France, Good Gestes, Flawed Blades, and Port o' Missing Men. In addition to the 116 stories published in Wren's short story collections there are some additional items in The Collected Short Stories. "At Oxford: Innocent Ernest and Artful Eintz" is a short story originally published in 1919 in an obscure fiction magazine. "The Romantic Regiment" and "Twenty-Four Hours in the Foreign Legion" are "factual" articles originally published in magazines. "Wonderful Egypt" is an article (more a photographic essay) originally published in The Strand Magazine. The article "I Saw a Vision " originally appeared in a rare psychic magazine, Prediction. There is also an article found in an Australian newspaper, "Meaning of Dreams," where Wren relates a couple of dreams he had experienced. Finally there is "Broken Glass," an unpublished short story. Each story has introductory comments by the editor, John L. Espley. Volume two of The Collected Short Stories contains eighteen short stories and two non-fiction articles originally published between 1928 and 1933. Twelve of the eighteen stories come from the collection, Good Gestes (1929), and the remaining six from Flawed Blades (1933). One of the articles was originally published in a fiction magazine, Soldiers of Fortune (December 1931), and the other article first appeared as a BBC radio broadcast.
Adventure Classics - including The Wages of Virtue, Cupid in Africa, Stepsons of France, Snake and Sword, Driftwood Spars & Biographical Stories of the French Foreign Legion
Adventure Classics - including The Wages of Virtue, Cupid in Africa, Stepsons of France, Snake and Sword, Driftwood Spars & Biographical Stories of the French Foreign Legion
This carefully crafted ebook: "Collected Works of P. C. WREN: 4 Novels & Stories from the Foreign Legion" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Percival Christopher Wren (1875-1941) was an English writer, mostly of adventure fiction. His novels and short stories mostly deal with colonial soldiering in Africa. While his fictional accounts of life in the pre-1914 Foreign Legion are highly romanticized, his details of Legion uniforms, training, equipment and barrack room layout are generally accurate, which has led to suggestions that Wren himself served with the legion. Table of Contents: The Novels SNAKE AND SWORD THE WAGES OF VIRTUE DRIFTWOOD SPARS CUPID IN AFRICA (The Baking of Bertram in Love and War) Short Stories STEPSONS OF FRANCE Ten little Legionaries À la Ninon de L'Enclos An Officer and—a Liar The Dead Hand The Gift The Deserter Five Minutes "Here are Ladies" The MacSnorrt "Belzébuth" The Quest "Vengeance is Mine..." Sermons in Stones Moonshine The Coward of the Legion Mahdev Rao The Merry Liars
Snake and Sword, The Wages of Virtue, Driftwood Spars, Cupid in Africa, Stepsons of France, Good Gestes, Flawed Blades, Port o' Missing Men and many more adventure tales
Snake and Sword, The Wages of Virtue, Driftwood Spars, Cupid in Africa, Stepsons of France, Good Gestes, Flawed Blades, Port o' Missing Men and many more adventure tales
This carefully crafted ebook: "P. C. WREN Ultimate Collection: The Complete BEAU GESTE TRILOGY + 4 Novels & 42 Short Stories of the Foreign Legion" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Table of Contents: The Beau Geste Trilogy BEAU GESTE BEAU SABREUR BEAU IDEAL Novels: SNAKE AND SWORD THE WAGES OF VIRTUE DRIFTWOOD SPARS CUPID IN AFRICA (The Baking of Bertram in Love and War) Short Stories STEPSONS OF FRANCE: Ten little Legionaries À la Ninon de L'Enclos An Officer and—a Liar The Dead Hand The Gift The Deserter Five Minutes "Here are Ladies" The MacSnorrt "Belzébuth" The Quest "Vengeance is Mine..." Sermons in Stones Moonshine The Coward of the Legion Mahdev Rao The Merry Liars GOOD GESTES: What's in a Name A Gentleman of Colour David and His Incredible Jonathan The McSnorrt Reminiscent Mad Murphy's Miracle Buried Treasure If Wishes were Horses The Devil and Digby Geste The Mule Low Finance Presentiments Dreams Come True FLAWED BLADES: Tales from the Foreign Legion No. 187017 Bombs Mastic--and Drastic The Death Post E Tenebris Nemesis The Hunting of Henri PORT O' MISSING MEN: Strange Tales of the Stranger Regiment The Return of Odo Klemens The Betrayal of Odo Klemens The Life of Odo Klemens Moon-rise Moon-shadows Moon-set Percival Christopher Wren (1875-1941) was an English writer, mostly of adventure fiction. He is remembered best for Beau Geste, a much-filmed book of 1924, involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. This was one of 33 novels and short story collections that he wrote, mostly dealing with colonial soldiering in Africa. While his fictional accounts of life in the pre-1914 Foreign Legion are highly romanticized, his details of Legion uniforms, training, equipment and barrack room layout are generally accurate, which has led to unproven suggestions that Wren himself served with the legion.
Stepsons of France by Percival Christopher Wren first published in 1917.Percival Christopher Wren was a British writer, mostly of adventure fiction. He is remembered best for Beau Geste, a much-filmed book of 1924, involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa, and its main sequels, Beau Sabreur and Beau Ideal (in fact the so-called "trilogy" was extended in Good Gestes and Spanish Maine, so John Geste adventures feature in five books).At the Depôt at Sidi-bel-Abbès, Sergeant-Major Suicide-Maker was a devil, but at a little frontier outpost in the desert, he was the devil, the increase in his degree being commensurate with the increase in his opportunities. When the Seventh Company of the First Battalion of the Foreign Legion of France, stationed at Aïnargoula in the Sahara, learned that Lieutenant Roberte was in hospital with a broken leg, it realized that, Captain d'Armentières being absent with the Mule Company, chasing Touaregs to the south...
There never lived a more honourable, upright, scrupulous gentleman than Major Hugh Walsingham Greene, and there seldom lived a duller, narrower, more pompous or more irascible one. Nor, when the Great War broke out, and gave him something fresh to do and to think about, were there many sadder and unhappier men. His had been a luckless and unfortunate life, what with his two wives and his one son; his excellent intentions and deplorable achievements; his kindly heart and harsh exterior; his narrow escapes of decoration, recognition and promotion. At cards he was not lucky—and in love he . . . well—his first wife, whom he adored, died after a year of him; and his second ran away after three months of his society. She ran away with Mr. Charles Stayne-Brooker (elsewhere the Herr Doktor Karl Stein-Brücker), the man of all men, whom he particularly and peculiarly loathed. And his son, his only son and heir! The boy was a bitter disappointment to him, turning out badly—a poet, an artist, a musician, a wretched student and “intellectual,” a fellow who won prizes and scholarships and suchlike by the hatful, and never carried off, or even tried for, a “pot,” in his life. Took after his mother, poor boy, and was the first of the family, since God-knows-when, to grow up a dam’ civilian. Father fought and bled in Egypt, South Africa, Burma, China, India; grandfather in the Crimea and Mutiny, great-grandfather in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, ancestors with Marlborough, the Stuarts, Drake—scores of them: and this chap, his son, theirdescendant, a wretched creature of whom you could no more make a soldier than you could make a service saddle of a sow’s ear! It was a comfort to the Major that he only saw the nincompoop on the rare occasions of his visits to England, when he honestly did his best to hide from the boy (who worshipped him) that he would sooner have seen him win one cup for boxing, than a hundred prizes for his confounded literature, art, music, classics, and study generally. To hide from the boy that the pæans of praise in his school reports were simply revolting—fit only for a feller who was going to be a wretched curate or wretcheder schoolmaster; to hide his distaste for the pale, slim beauty, which was that of a delicate girl rather than of the son of Major Hugh Walsingham Greene. . . . Too like his poor mother by half—and without one quarter the pluck, nerve, and “go” of young Miranda Walsingham, his kinswoman and playmate. . . . Too dam’ virtuous altogether.
Beau Geste: When a precious jewel known as the "Blue Water" turns up missing, the three Geste brothers, the adopted children of Lady Brandon, are suspected. Beau joins the French Foreign Legion, as do his brothers. When only one of the brothers returns to England, it is revealed that the theft of the jewel had been a matter of honor.
This volume has two of the early novels of P.C. Wren, the author of the famous Beau Geste soldier of fortune series. "Cupid in Africa" - Bertram Walsingham Greene is a clever and studious young man who is a sad disappointment to his father, Major Walsingham Greene. Bertram, who worships the Major, resolves to go to war and enlists as a Second-Lieutenant in the Indian Army Reserve. He does his training (such as it is) in India but is soon sent to Africa to take part in the bloody fighting there. He changes from a wet-behind-the-ears, but thoroughly nice man into a battle-hardened fighter and learns a lot about himself as he goes along. The early stages of the story are rather funny, but as Bertram battles his way through the jungle and swamp of Africa, leading his men, things become much more serious in tone. The descriptions of the fighting between the mostly native troops under British command and the askaris who, under their German leaders, oppose them are wonderfully done. * * * * "Snake and Sword" is a powerful book. A pregnant woman, terrified of poisonous snakes, is stuck in a dark room with one trapped under her foot. The mental shock is so great that she transmits it to her unborn child. The child, Damocles de Warrenne, or Dam, as everyone calls him, grows up the typical all around British empire builder, except that he collapses in a "fit" at the sight of any snake. This causes people to think he is a coward. Instead of becoming an officer in the army he becomes a private and hides his identity, losing, he fears, the respect and love of the woman he loves. With a large touch of realism it is the story of a "fallen gentleman" who remains a "British" gentleman even in the adversity of the private ranks. Wren is very forthright and critical of the life of a private soldier-he describes it as being unnecessarily cruel and tough-and after quite adequately describing the difficulties of a private in the British cavalry, he mentions that the only worst military life is the French Foreign Legion. * * * * This volume includes the complete text of both books, published in 1920, and 1914, respectively. * * * * Check our other Children's, Juvenile, and Adult books at www.FlyingChipmunkPublishing.com, or Like us on Facebook for our latest releases.
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Books for All Kinds of Readers. ReadHowYouWant offers the widest selection of on-demand, accessible format editions on the market today. Our 7 different sizes of EasyRead are optimized by increasing the font size and spacing between the words and the letters. We partner with leading publishers around the globe. Our goal is to have accessible editions simultaneously released with publishers' new books so that all readers can have access to the books they want to read. To find more books in your format visit www.readhowyouwant.com
Books for All Kinds of Readers. ReadHowYouWant offers the widest selection of on-demand, accessible format editions on the market today. Our 7 different sizes of EasyRead are optimized by increasing the font size and spacing between the words and the letters. We partner with leading publishers around the globe. Our goal is to have accessible editions simultaneously released with publishers' new books so that all readers can have access to the books they want to read. To find more books in your format visit www.readhowyouwant.com
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