Beau Geste is an adventure novel by British writer 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. Published in 1924, the novel is set in the period before World War I. It has been adapted for the screen several times.
Plot summary
Michael "Beau" Geste is the protagonist. The main narrator is his younger brother John. The three Geste brothers are portrayed as behaving according to the English upper-class values of a time gone by. The Geste siblings 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 (the 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 (following in the steps of his elder brothers).
The inciting incident is the disappearance of a precious jewel known as the "Blue Water". Suspicion falls on the band of young people, and Beau leaves England 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, Beau and John are posted to the small garrison of the fictional desert outpost of Fort Zinderneuf, while Digby and his American friends Hank and Buddy are sent to Tanout-Azzal to train with a mule mounted company. The commander at Fort Zinderneuf (after the death of two more senior officers) is the sadistic Sergeant Major Lejaune, who drives his abused subordinates to the verge of mutiny. An attack by Tuaregs prevents mutiny and mass desertion (only the Geste brothers and a few loyalists are against the plot). Throughout the book, 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 from Tokotu that reaches Fort Zinderneuf too late. Together with John (the last man left standing at Zinderneuf) they desert and experience a long trek during which Digby is killed in a skirmish with Arabs.
After becoming separated from his friends Hank and Buddy in the desert, John returns to Brandon Abbas. The last survivor of the three brothers, he is welcomed by their aunt and his fiancée Isobel. In a letter from Beau delivered by John to Aunt Patricia, the reason for the jewel theft is revealed to have been to prevent Aunt Patricia's exposure for having secretly sold the jewel to enable her to extend relief to Sir Hector's exploited tenants.
In Beau Ideal and other sequels P. C. Wren ties loose strings together, including recording that Michael Geste's original reasons for joining the Foreign Legion were not only honour but also his doomed and impossible love for Claudia. The French officer of Spahis Major de Beaujolais, who commands the relief column at Fort Zinderneuf, is the narrator of Wren's subsequent novel Beau Sabreur.
Title
The phrase "beau geste" () is from the French, meaning "a gracious (or fine) gesture". However, several references in the novel allude to the fact that the name can be taken to mean 'joke', or 'humorous remark' suggest that it is pronounced like English 'jest'.
In French, the phrase includes the suggestion of a fine gesture with unwelcome or futile consequences, and an allusion to the chanson de geste, a literary poem celebrating the legendary deeds of a hero.