P. C. Wren: Adventure Novels & Tales From the Foreign Legion. P. C. Wren

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       P. C. Wren

      P. C. Wren: Adventure Novels & Tales From the Foreign Legion

      The Wages of Virtue, Cupid in Africa, Snake and Sword, Driftwood Spars…

       Published by

      

Books

      Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting

       [email protected] 2017 OK Publishing ISBN 978-80-7583-819-3

      Table of Contents

       Novels:

       SNAKE AND SWORD

       THE WAGES OF VIRTUE

       DRIFTWOOD SPARS

       CUPID IN AFRICA: Or, The Baking of Bertram in Love and War

       Short Story Collections:

       STEPSONS OF FRANCE

      Novels:

       Table of Contents

      SNAKE AND SWORD

       Table of Contents

       Part I. The Welding of a Soul

       Chapter I. The Snake and the Soul

       Part II. The Searing of a Soul

       Chapter II. The Sword and the Snake

       Chapter III. The Snake Appears

       Chapter IV. The Sword and the Soul

       Chapter V. Lucille

       Chapter VI. The Snake's "Myrmidon"

       Chapter VII. Love—and the Snake

       Chapter VIII. Troopers of the Queen

       Chapter IX. A Snake Avenges a Haddock and Lucille Behaves in an Un-Smelliean Manner

       Chapter X. Much Ado About Almost Nothing—a Trooper

       Chapter XI. More Myrmidons

       Part III. The Saving of a Soul

       Chapter XII. Vultures and Luck—good and Bad

       Chapter XIII. Found

       Chapter XIV. The Snake and the Sword

       Seven Years After

       Epilogue

      To

       MY WIFE ALICE LUCILLE WREN

      Part I.

       The Welding of a Soul

       Table of Contents

      Chapter I.

       The Snake and the Soul

       Table of Contents

      When Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne, V.C., D.S.O., of the Queen's Own (118th) Bombay Lancers, pinned his Victoria Cross to the bosom of his dying wife's night-dress, in token of his recognition that she was the braver of the twain, he was not himself.

      He was beside himself with grief.

      Afterwards he adjured the sole witness of this impulsive and emotional act, Major John Decies, never to mention his "damned theatrical folly" to any living soul, and to excuse him on the score of an ancient sword-cut on the head and two bad sun-strokes.

      For the one thing in heaven above, on the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, that Colonel de Warrenne feared, was breach of good form and stereotyped convention.

      And the one thing he loved was the dying woman.

      This last statement applies also to Major John Decies, of the Indian Medical Service, Civil Surgeon of Bimariabad, and may even be expanded, for the one thing he ever had loved was the dying woman….

      Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne did the deed that won him his Victoria Cross, in the open, in the hot sunlight and in hot blood, sword in hand and with hot blood on the sword-hand—fighting for his life.

      His wife did the deed that moved him to transfer the Cross to her, in darkness, in cold blood, in loneliness, sickness and silence—fighting for the life of her unborn child against an unseen foe.

      Colonel de Warrenne's type of brave deed has been performed thousands of times and wherever brave men have fought.

      His wife's deed of endurance, presence of mind, self-control and cool courage is rarer, if not unique.

      To appreciate this fully, it must be known that she had a horror of snakes, so terrible as to amount to an obsession, a mental deformity, due, doubtless, to the fact that her father (Colonel Mortimer Seymour Stukeley) died of snake-bite before her mother's eyes, a few hours before she herself was born.

      Bearing this in mind, judge of the conduct that led Colonel de Warrenne, distraught, to award her his Cross "For Valour".

      One oppressive June evening, Lenore de Warrenne