Called

by P.C. Wren

Unknown Binding

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

[Chloe Morley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn’t sure whether I should give this one or two stars and then scrolled through my other ratings and realised I have a probably 2 star book for me as 3 stars so I’m giving this a two. It’s a short story which I guess carries out its point but I think it could have been more intriguing. It didn’t really pull me in or excite me which can be done with quick short stories but to me this didn’t do it. I know some people don’t tend to like short stories because of lack of development but this just needed to be a quick thrill in my eyes for it to be more to my liking. I listened to the audiobook as it was on my library app and wanted something short to listen to and thought it would be spooky, but again for me it was more like a casual matter of fact listen. A good point though, is that the story worked and you knew what was happening, but I just thought it could have been more spooky and gripping. I know it’s only short but I still wanted to be captivated by what was going on.

[☆Ruth☆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Audio version). A neat short-story, very nicely read. I would have liked a slightly more interesting ending but otherwise enjoyable.

[Mayda · Rating 3 out of 5]

An abusive husband, a downtrodden wife, a death or a murder, and then, a ghostly voice that not everyone hears. Is he insane or just overcome with guilt? A creepy story.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10

[Katie Kuntz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haunt terrible men!