Michael “Beau” Geste is the protagonist. The main narrator (among others), by contrast, is his younger brother John. The three Geste brothers are a metaphor for 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 at Brandon Abbas. When a precious jewel known as the “Blue Water” goes missing, suspicion falls on the young people, and Beau leaves Britain to join the French Foreign Legion, followed by his brothers, Digby (his twin) and John. There, after some adventure and separation from Digby, the sadistic Sergeant Major Lejaune gets command of the little garrison at Fort Zinderneuf in French North Africa, and only an attack by Tuaregs prevents a mutiny and mass desertion._x000D_ 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.
