The Wages of Virtue

Sir Montague Merline and his platoon get into a bloody combat in Africa and they are all massacred except for one man. Since her husband is presumed dead, Lady Merline remarries, but Montague emerges a couple of years later in some African village, with no memory. After finding out about his wife's new life, he decides not to ruin her happiness and goes off to join French Foreign Legion. The descriptions of Legion garrison life closely match those contained in the autobiographical In the Foreign Legion by ex-legionnaire Edwin Rosen. Percival Christopher Wren 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.