Stepsons of France

by P.C. Wren

Short story index reprint series

316 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1917

About the author

Percival Christopher Wren (1 November 1875 – 22 November 1941) 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 sequels, Beau Sabreur and Beau Ideal.

Born as plain Percy Wren, in Deptford, South London, England, Percy was the son of a schoolmaster. After graduation with a Master of Arts degree from St. Catherine's College, Oxford, a non-collegiate college for poorer students, Percy worked as a boarding school teacher for a few years, during which he married Alice Shovelier, and had a daughter (Estelle, born 1901). In 1903 he joined the Indian Education Service as headmaster of Karachi High School (now Pakistan). While in India, he joined the Poona Volunteer Rifles with the rank of Captain, before his service was terminated in October 1915 after sick leave. He resigned from the Indian Education Service in November 1917. It is presumed that his wife died in India, for no record of her return to Britain has been found; his daughter having died in England in 1910. From there it is claimed that he joined the French Foreign Legion for a single tour of five years though he would have been 42 years of age on enlistment, somewhat older that the usual recruit. He lived out the remainder of his life in England concentrating on his literary career. One of the few photographs of Wren known shows a typical British officer of the Edwardian era with clipped moustache, wearing plain dark blue regimental dress.

Wren was a highly secretive man, and his membership of the Legion has never been confirmed. When his novels became famous, there was a mysterious absence of authenticating photographs of him as a legionnaire or of the usual press-articles by old comrades wanting to cash in on their memories of a celebrated figure. It is now thought more likely that he encountered legionnaires during his extensive travels in Algeria and Morocco, and skillfully blended their stories with his own memories of a short spell as a cavalry trooper in England. While his fictional accounts of life in the pre-1914 Foreign Legion are highly romanticised, his details of Legion uniforms, training, equipment and barrack room layout are generally accurate. This may however simply reflect careful research on his part - the descriptions of Legion garrison life given in his work The Wages of Virtue written in 1914 closely match those contained in the autobiographical In the Foreign Legion by ex legionnaire Edwin Rosen, published Duckworth London 1910.

Reviews

[Manuel Alfonseca · Rating 3 out of 5]

ENGLISH: P.C. Wren is well-known for his novels about the French Foreign Legion, especially his Geste trilogy. In this collection of short stories, which I have read for the third time, Wren recovers the main characters of his novel The Wages of Virtue, who appear here in several short stories dealing with life in the French foreign legion, together with the excellent captain d'Armentières. I liked specially the following stories:

The dead hand: Difficult to believe, but its aim is not to describe a paranormal situation, but making someone else ridiculous.

The gift: Usually persons owning a debt of gratitude hates who made them a good turn. Captain D'Armentières tells a counter-example involving his orderly, John Bull.

The deserter: A deserter from the Legion is recognized by the sadistic Legros while on his honeymoon.

Belzébuth: A woman puts her health in danger to win a horse race, thus saving the health of her husband and children. Belzébuth is the name of the horse.

ESPAÑOL: P.C. Wren es muy conocido por sus novelas sobre la Legión extranjera francesa, especialmente su trilogía sobre los hermanos Geste. En esta colección de cuentos, que he leído por tercera vez, Wren recupera a los principales personajes de su novela The Wages of Virtue, que aparecen aquí en varios cuentos cortos sobre la vida en la legión extranjera francesa, junto con el excelente capitán d'Armentières. Estos fueron los que más me gustaron:

La mano muerta: Es difícil de creer, pero su objetivo no es describir una situación paranormal, sino ridiculizar a alguien.

El regalo: Usualmente quien debe una deuda de gratitud suele odiar a su benefactor. El capitán d'Armentières ofrece un contraejemplo en el que participó su ordenanza, John Bull.

El desertor: Un desertor de la Legión es reconocido por el sádico Legros durante su luna de miel.

Belcebú: Una mujer pone en peligro su salud para ganar una carrera de caballos, y así salvar la salud de su esposo y de sus hijos. El caballo se llama Belcebú.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stepsons of France (1917) by P. C. Wren (1885-1941) is a series of shared-world stories about a recurring group of Foreign Legion soldiers. The men are from various countries, social classes, races, and military ranks. The stories take place in many cities, including London, Goa, Haiphong, and other wartime surroundings. Stories have a generous helping of irony and droll wit, as well as seems of battle and torture and the everyday madness of the legion termed Le Cafard. It's the serious kind of jolly bloodbath that died with Hemingway.
I. “Ten Little Legionaries”
Location: Aïnargoula, a remote frontier outpost in the Sahara Desert.
Summary of Plot: While the company's just captains and lieutenants are away or hospitalized, the absolute command of the outpost falls to the tyrannical Sergeant-Major, nicknamed "Suicide-Maker," who takes sadistic pleasure in driving men to madness and self-destruction. Under his brutal rule, life becomes a living hell of endless drills in the blistering heat. Driven to desperation by le cafard (desert madness), a brilliant but heartless French scoundrel named Blondin forms a secret society with nine other specialized Legionaries. They plot to assassinate the Suicide-Maker and escape across the desert to Morocco, where they hope to amass fortunes serving the Sultan.
Throughout the grueling journey, the number of escapees ruthlessly drops one by one, a decline that the macabre
Believing himself the ultimate, brilliant survivor after facilitating the deaths of his nine comrades, Blondin blithely rides alone toward the palm seas of Marrakesh. Suddenly, a Moorish military force mistakes his Arab attire for an enemy faction and fires a volley. His camel is killed, and Blondin is struck in the chest and shoulder. As the yelling Moors close in to slice him into ribbons, the hyper-cynical Blondin spends his absolute final breaths gasping out the final verse of his macabre song—concluding that the last little Legionary was killed because he killed his friend, leaving none alive.
Starting with “Ten little Legionaries,” the narrative scope of Stepsons of France is mapped. This opening story acts as the perfect thematic blueprint for the entire sequence.
Blondin’s calculated, murderous trek across the Sahara mirrors the larger paradox of the Foreign Legion itself: a collection of brilliant, highly resourceful, yet utterly expendable outcasts engaging a shared hell, only to find that their worst enemies are often their own flaws and the merciless ironies of fate. By ending exactly where it began—with the rhyme counting down to absolute zero—Wren establishes a bleak, darkly witty worldview where human survival is a brutal numbers game, and the house always wins.
II. “À la Ninon de L'Enclos”
Location: Hanoï, Tonkin (by the Red River).

Summary of Plot: A tragic tale told by the eccentric Legionary "La Cigale" (The Grasshopper). Ninon Dürlonnklau, a beautiful woman of mixed German and Lao descent, runs a popular establishment frequented by the Legion. She had a son who was kidnapped in his infancy. Years later, a handsome new recruit named Villa arrives and the two fall instantly in love at first sight. Soon after they retire to an inner room, a horrific scream is heard. Recognizing her long-lost son by a distinct birthmark on his neck, Ninon cries out, prompting the young soldier—overwhelmed by love and the shame of the revelation—to drive his bayonet through his throat, fulfilling a local soothsayer's prophecy.
III. “An Officer and—a Liar”
Location: Eastern exile (Indo-China / Saigon).

Summary of Plot: Little Madame Gallais is a firm believer in the occult, while her heavy, materialistic husband, an Adjudant-Major in the Legion, is an absolute scoffer. Tragically, their beloved young son is burned to death back home in France. Driven to the brink of insanity by grief, Madame Gallais cannot sleep or weep. Desperate to save her sanity, the Adjudant-Major concocts a "planchette swindle," inventing fluent, comforting messages supposedly sent by their dead child assuring her he felt no pain. The plan succeeds in bringing her a healing release of tears, but it traps the unimaginative Major in a grueling nightmare of continuous psychic forgery until he suffers a near-fatal brain fever from the sheer mental strain.
IV. “The Dead Hand”
Location: Haiphong, Tonkin (at the Cercle Militaire / Red River).

Summary of Plot: During a military gathering, an arrogant, overly confident young lieutenant named d'Amienville scoffs at the existence of telepathy and the supernatural. In response, the respected and battle-worn Captain d'Armentières shares a grim personal experience: he swears he was once locked in a dark room and choked to near-death by a freezing, detached "Dead Hand" which even stabbed him in the arm before he flung it off. After letting the audience stew in suspense, d'Armentières delivers a brilliant twist ending: his orderly, Jean Boule, discovered that the Captain had simply fallen asleep on his own arm, cutting off its circulation until it was completely numb, and then choked himself during a terrifying nightmare before smashing into his bedside lamp.
V. “The Gift”
Location: The Red River, Tonkin (recounted at a Spahis' mess in Algeria).

Summary of Plot: Following a debate regarding the existence of true human gratitude, Captain d'Armentières recounts a time when he was a starving, fever-stricken seventeen-year-old private dying of dysentery in the brutal, rain-soaked mud of Tonkin. After a grueling skirmish against the "Black Flags," an unpolished but educated English private named John Bull (Jean Boule) saves d'Armentières from drowning in the swamp. Given two rare tinned sausages by a lieutenant for his bravery, John Bull selflessly cooks one and gives it entirely to the dying d'Armentières. Years later, d'Armentières finds John Bull serving as his own orderly; the stoic Englishman has completely forgotten the magnificent sacrifice, while the Captain holds an eternal debt of gratitude.
VI. “The Deserter”
Location: Marseilles, France.

Summary of Plot: An Englishman named Henry Robinson is blissfully enjoying his honeymoon with his new bride when they stop at a pavement café in Marseilles. Suddenly, a brutal French lieutenant named Legros recognizes Robinson as a fugitive who deserted the Foreign Legion eight years prior. Robinson is promptly arrested, facing the grim reality of a living death in a disciplinary battalion. Trusting Captain d'Armentières to escort his fainting wife safely back to their English ship, Robinson waits for the perfect tactical moment. He feigns an outright collapse, and then explodes into action—brutally striking Legros, outrunning a chaotic mob through the winding streets of Marseilles, and successfully leaping onto a tram to find sanctuary on his ship (British soil) just in time.
VII. “Five Minutes”
Location: The jungle track between Hu-Thuong and Phulang-Thuong, Tonkin.

Summary of Plot: A French Legionary using the alias "Jacques Bonhomme" lies mortally wounded on a stretcher during a hazardous convoy retreat. Granted a brief window to pass away in peace, he spends his final, delirious moments recounting a bizarre mathematical obsession to his comrade, John Bull. He reveals that he spent virtually every waking minute of his past life agonizingly calculating time in order to cherish just five single minutes of every year. For seven years, he traveled to a tiny train station just to catch a fleeting glimpse of his untouchable, unrequited love, the Marquise de Montheureux. On the eighth year, he prepared to finally kiss her hand, only to open the train door and find she had tragically died of typhoid while working among her people. Broken-hearted, he enlisted in the Legion to seek an honorable death, which he ultimately achieves.
VIII. "Here are Ladies"
Location: The superheated mangrove swamps and dense jungles of Dahomey, West Africa.

Summary of Plot: A detachment of Legionaries is sent to quell the forces of King Behanzin. The vanguard, including John Bull and the massive American known as the "Bucking Bronco," finds itself blindsided by a relentless, terrifyingly fierce regiment of Dahomeyan Amazons—highly trained, muscular female warriors wielding repeating carbines and heavy chopping swords. The little advance line is completely overwhelmed in a brutal melee. John Bull is knocked unconscious by a blunt blow, while the Bucking Bronco and their hated Sergeant-Major are carried off alive into the dark brush. That night, a volunteer rescue party traces a foul scent of burning flesh to an enemy clearing. They discover the Sergeant-Major has been unspeakably mutilated, while the Bronco is stripped bare and bound to a palm tree awaiting execution. Pushing back the furies with a ruthless surprise volley, John Bull frees his friend, leaving the shaken Bronco with a lifelong, deep-seated terror of women.
IX. “The MacSnorrt”
Location: Haiphong, Tonkin.

Summary of Plot: The MacSnorrt is a once-proud Cunard Chief Engineer who has completely spiraled down the path of severe alcoholism into the rowdiest ranks of the Legion. One evening, fueled entirely by a toxic rice-spirit called shum-shum, he wanders into a crowded native pagoda. In his highly deluded, affectionate stupor, he mistakes a ferocious native Sergeant of the Tirailleurs Tonkinois (nicknamed "The Young Ladies" due to their long hair) for a beautiful military vivandière. He pins the homicidal sergeant to his chest, ignores an angry local mob, and begins loudly lecturing his captive on the watery horrors of naval combat. When the native soldier finally manages to break a hand free and strikes with his bayonet, the giant MacSnorrt effortlessly uses him as a human battering ram to plow through the hostile crowd until a passing military picket cracks him over the skull to restore order.
X. "Belzébuth"
Location: Bellevue, Algeria.

Summary of Plot: Living in crushing, appearances-only poverty, Madame Paës—the horse-savvy wife of an overworked, junior French officer—stumbles upon a golden opportunity: a wealthy colonel is hunting for a high-caliber race pony for his wife and is willing to pay a massive 3,000 francs. Madame Paës secretly resolves to train their family pony, Belzébuth—a beautiful but neglected beast they originally bought as a skeleton for a mere 200 francs. Skipping her own medical provisions to buy training oats, she pushes through severe physical weakness to enter the local Desert Point-to-Point race. Despite a horrifying training crash that nearly crushes her, she mounts Belzébuth on race day and beats a highly competitive field by an absolute mile. Though her short-sighted husband initially berates her for making the pony lame, her ultimate gamble pays off spectacularly when a colonel steps in the next morning offering a massive 4,000 francs for the champion horse, ensuring their ticket back to France.
XI. “The Quest”
Location: Sidi-bel-Abbès, Algeria to London, England (including Hammersmith and Pall Mall).

Summary of Plot: Having survived severe battle wounds, tropical diseases, and intense military bullying, an aristocratic Englishman enlists under the alias "William Jones" and finally finishes his five-year term in the Legion. He is discharged as an absolute physical wreck suffering from severe spinal sclerosis, a condition that triggers unpredictable bouts of instantaneous sleep. Driven by a Singular Quest, he scrapes together his remaining funds to travel to London, surviving on a dynamic poverty diet of fourpence a day in a Rowton House while spending his mornings impeccably dressed at his old elite gentleman's club. He endures intense starvation alongside temptation, stubbornly keeping a single sovereign intact in his waistcoat pocket for one reason: he must meet his lost love, Lady Margaret (Peggy), on equal terms one last time before he dies. Just as his body reaches total collapse near Devonshire House, Peggy spots him from her carriage. It is revealed she never stopped loving him; she immediately takes him in, and her dedicated nursing successfully rescues him from the brink of death.
XII. "Vengeance is Mine..."
Location: Thorn, Silesia/Germany (recounted on a deathbed in an active African campaign).

Summary of Plot: As the young Legionary Jean Rien lies bleeding to death from a brutal Arab lance wound, he unburdens his soul to old John Bull. He reveals that his entire childhood was a systematic exercise in psychological conditioning; his mother, Marie Duval, was systematically abused by a Prussian officer named von Schlofen during the War of 1870, who then brutally slit her husband's throat with his own knife. Marie raised Jean with a singular, daily oath: to seek out his biological father when he turned seventeen and slaughter him with that exact same knife. Jean trained relentlessly for over two decades, mastered the art of tracking, and eventually broke into the old Prussian's bedroom on a moonlit night. He raised the blade, pinned his target's head back, and drove it deep—only to realize with a sudden, ironic shock that the old man had already died of natural causes hours prior, leaving him to stab a completely cold corpse.
XIII. “Sermons in Stones”
Location: An outpost in Sefraina, Algeria (recounted in a stifling barrack-room).

Summary of Plot: To distract the massive Bucking Bronco from a dangerous, explosive fit of desert madness (le cafard), John Bull spins a yarn about his youth in India. While visiting his military brother, he investigated a local "Holy Man" who had successfully prophesied that a runaway train car would derail and shoot a pile of building stones right at his feet. Discovering the fraudulent saint brutally beating a local woman inside his stone hut, a young John Bull rushes in and knocks the holy man clean out. Later, while riding across an entirely wide-open, flat, and completely stoneless plain, John Bull is suddenly targeted by a series of massive, airborne stones that narrowly miss his skull. There is absolutely no cover, no catapult, and no human being within sight for miles. Realizing he is facing a terrifying, long-distance telekinetic curse from the vengeful wizard, John Bull tactfully unbuckles his heavy leather saddle, places it firmly over his head like a helmet, and rides like absolute hell—waking up later to find the saddle beaten completely to splinters by the mysterious projectiles.
XIV. “Moonshine”
Location: Port Said and the Indian Ocean (onboard the troopship L'Orient en route to Singapore).

Summary of Plot: During a bright, full-moon night at an oasis, the highly unstable "La Cigale" is found performing a solemn solo dance. He explains to his friends that his lost love, Diane, loved to dance in the moonlight, which incited a dark, suffocating jealousy in her malicious husband, an artilleryman named Delacroix. Delacroix eventually choked Diane to death and fled. Years later, La Cigale is stunned to spot Delacroix boarding his same military troopship. Biding his time until the ship is traversing the empty expanse of the Indian Ocean, La Cigale corners the rogue on an empty deck, catches him from behind, and launches them both over the railing into the sea. He repeatedly drags Delacroix down into the deep, screaming Diane's name until the villain is completely drowned. When the ship's crew pulls La Cigale out of the water an hour later, he is universally celebrated as an incredible hero who risked his own life to "save" an officer—an illusion that John Bull lets slide, despite privately knowing that La Cigale cannot swim a single stroke.
XV. “The Coward of the Legion”
Location: The damp, fever-ridden Betsimisarake district of Madagascar.

Summary of Plot: A massive recruit named Jean Jacques Dubonnet displays stunning battlefield heroism, risking his life to single-handedly rescue his wounded lieutenant from a swarm of Sakalave savages. Yet that night, he collapses into violent tears, branding himself an absolute coward. He confesses to John Bull that he was an unprincipled Paris apache (hooligan) who entered a romantic double-suicide pact with his mistress to escape her brutally violent husband. When she drank her poison and died in his arms, Dubonnet's courage utterly failed; he could not drink his own glass, leaving her to die alone. His furious street gang later captured him and used a white-hot pipe to deeply brand the words "J. J. DUBONNET LIAR AND COWARD" directly across his chest. Understanding his psychological torment, John Bull offers a brutal, symbolic path to redemption: he uses a red-hot iron packing clamp to completely sear over the tattoo without an anesthetic. Dubonnet stoically endures the blinding pain, burns away his past shame, and emerges a truly fearless soldier who ultimately falls years later as the bravest man at the Battle of Verdun.
XVI. “Mahdev Rao”
Location: Mombobora boma and a river bridge, German East Africa.

Summary of Plot: Mahdev Rao is a proud, high-caste Mahratta wrestler and a deeply loyal Sepoy serving the British Indian Expeditionary Force. During a deep jungle patrol, he is ambushed, captured, and stripped bare by native German askaris. Hauled before a ruthless, debt-ridden German officer named von Groener, Rao refuses to understand or answer military interrogation. Misinterpreting his silent loyalty as simple obstinacy, von Groener orders Rao to be tied to a tree and brutally flogged with a heavy rhinoceros-hide whip until he is a bloody, unconscious wreck. The structural degradation of being publicly whipped by low-caste captors shatters Rao's spirit, completely rendering him an out-caste to his own faith. He lives for only one purpose: absolute revenge. Weeks later, while working in a chained road-gang near a muddy bridge in Mombobora, Rao spots von Groener casually taking a morning stroll. Rao leaps like a tiger, locks the officer in an iron wrestling grip, plunges them both over the bridge, and holds von Groener's head deep under the thick, suffocating river slime until he is completely dead.
XVII. “The Merry Liars”
Location: A stone frontier fort in the deep, arid Sahara Desert.
Summary of Plot: To kill the crushing boredom of desert outpost life, a diverse circle of Legionaries holds a friendly competition to see who can spinning the most outrageous, monumental lie. The giant Bucking Bronco takes the floor and spins a remarkably gritty story about his outlaw days in Texas with his partner, Bud Conklin. Bud fell deeply in love with a girl named Mame, who was trapped under the abusive thumb of a malicious rogue named Dago Jake. The trio ran away but were caught at their first campsite by Jake's armed syndicate. Jake engineered a sick, diabolical punishment: he bound the girl tightly to a tree, rigged a hanging noose over a branch for Bud, and forced the Bronco to carry Bud high on his shoulders. Bud's life hung entirely on how many hours the Bronco could physically endure standing perfectly upright under his massive weight. The grueling ordeal lasted until nightfall when a young Ranger patrol finally ambushed the camp, though both Bud and Mame tragically died. The Bronco later tracked down Jake and broke him completely to pieces with his bare hands. When the Cockney 'Erb complains that this story is far too painfully true to win a lying contest, the Bronco seamlessly pivots, drawling an absurd follow-up about a fast American train moving so quickly that when he leaned out to kiss a Ranger on the platform, the kiss didn't actually land until it struck a cow grazing thirty-three miles down the tracks.

Conclusion

Wren’s Stepsons of France functions is an intricate tapestry using frame-narrative structure: hardened soldiers in grueling, remote outposts (such as the Sahara Desert or the jungles of Tonkin) share profound personal histories to fight off boredom and madness (le cafard).

[Jimmy Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since I read all the Geste stories (Beau, Ideal, Sabreur, and Good), PC Wren has been on my short list. The fact that the French Foreign Legion believes that he never served, and got all his background (and his stories?) from Legionnaires, makes these many books from a career schoolteacher all the more amazing.

"Stepsons of France" is a collection of short stories, published some seven years before the classic "Beau Geste." This was his third Foreign Legion book, after "Wages of Virtue," and "Driftwood Spars." Each story in this book tells of the romance and quixotic nobility of the legion in which the the members enrolled, leaving their homeland, and attempting to leave their sins, behind to fight for now faraway France. At the same time, Wren conveys the boredom, the heat, the abuse, and anonymity the men must endure during their seemingly endless and dangerous service.

Like the legionnaire relationships, each short story begins, and often ends, with only tantalizing bits about the backgrounds of the members - a fascinating story method. And Wren uses the same characters in many of his tales - giving us tidbits about reoccurring personalities and histories - another breadcrumb method. It's hard to put the book down - you want to keep reading to learn more about these individuals.

Well written, solid adventure stories of the legion - one of PC Wren's good ones.

[Patrick Baird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sadly, this book is out of print, but I suppose it makes sense - it's of another age. This collection of tales of the French Foreign Legion, written by the author of Beau Geste, is filled with anachronisms and politically incorrect sentiments. Mention Beau Geste to your average modern reader/filmgoer or even the French Foreign Legion, and you will likely draw a blank.

It's a shame, because these stories are a ton of fun. They range from tall tales to doomed romances to swashbuckling action. Throughout, the men of the Legion fight, die, and laugh in the face of danger. They also steal, murder, and live with the shame of cowardice. It's a wonderfully mixed bag.

Wren sometimes goes overboard with flowery prose, but just as often he renders a taut, nasty story.

Go on an expedition to the forgotten stacks of your local library for Stepsons of France. It will be worth the trip.