Beau Geste
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| Author | P. C. Wren |
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| Genre | Novel |
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Publication date
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1924 |
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Beau Geste is an adventure novel by P. C. Wren, which details the adventures of three English brothers who enlist separately in the French Foreign Legion following the theft of a valuable jewel from the country house of a relative. While written in 1924 the novel is set in the period before World War I. It has been adapted for the screen several times.
Michael "Beau" Geste is the protagonist (and an archetype). The main narrator is his younger brother John. The three Geste brothers are portrayed as behaving according to the British upper class values of a time gone by, and "the decent thing to do" is, in fact, the leitmotif of the novel. The Geste brothers are orphans and have been brought up by their aunt Lady Patricia at Brandon Abbas. The rest of Beau's band are mainly Isobel and Claudia (possibly the illegitimate daughter of Lady Patricia) and Lady Patricia's relative Augustus (caddish nephew of the absent Sir Hector Brandon). While not mentioned in "Beau Geste", the American Otis Vanbrugh appears as a friend of the Geste brothers in a sequel novel. John and Isobel are devoted to each other and it is in part to spare her any suspicion of being a thief that he takes the extreme step of joining the French Foreign Legion.
The detonator of the main plot is when a precious jewel known as the "Blue Water" goes missing or is stolen. Suspicion falls on the band of young people, and Beau leaves Britain to join the French Foreign Legion in Algeria, followed by his brothers, Digby (his twin) and John. After recruit training in Sidi Bel Abbes and some active service skirmishing with tribesmen in the south, John and Beau are posted to the little garrison of the desert outpost of Fort Zinderneuf, and Digby and his friends Hank and Buddy to Tokotu to train with a mule mounted company. The commander at Fort Zinderneuf (after the death of two senior officers) is the sadistic Sergeant Major Lejaune who drives his abused subordinates to the verge of mutiny. An attack by Tuaregs prevents mass desertion (only the Geste brothers and a few loyals are against the scheme). Throughout the book and adventures, Beau's behaviour is true to France and the Legion, and he dies at his post. Digby, Hank and Buddy arrive with a relief column that reaches Fort Zinderneuf too late and Digby is subsequently killed in a skirmish.
At Brandon Abbas, the last survivor of the three brothers, John, is welcomed by their aunt and his fiancée Isobel, and the reason for the jewel theft is revealed to have been a matter of honour, and to have been the only "decent thing" possible. In "Beau Ideal" and other sequels P.C. Wren ties loose strings together, including recording that Michael Geste's originals reasons for joining the Foreign Legion were honour but also his doomed and impossible love for Claudia.
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