Grenades for the Colonel

 

cover art by Paul Stahr

This might be my favorite J.D. Newsom Foreign Legion story.

"Grenades for the Colonel" was published in the February 16, 1935 issue of Argosy. In French-controlled Moracco, a chiefton named Mulay is rebelling. Colonel Dubosquet is given the job of crushing the rebellion. The battle sequence that follows includes this evocative paragraph:

"The Colonel was on top of him all the way. Not the colonel in person, naturally, but his men. There is a slight difference. He carried out his orders to the letter: regardless of cost, he hammered Mulay, and in his wake wooden crosses made from ammunition boxes and packing crates bloomed by the wayside. Crosses surmounted by the sweaty, blood-smeared caps of the dead of half-a-dozen regiments. Crosses sacred to the memory of Jean-Baptiste Durand of the Signal Corps; sacred to the memory of Fritz Sturmer of the Foreign Legion; sacred to the eternal memory of some poor devil, slumped down among the boulders on a nameless hillside, coughing up his life blood through a hole in his throat; sacred to the everlasting memory of all those whom the jackels will disinter when silence comes again, and the stars shine, and the battle has rolled on to the next ridge. Crosses lopsided in the windblown sand: firewood for the next migratory tribe drifting down the valley..."

Eventually, Mulay and his bodyguard of 500 warriors appear to be cornered. They make a run for it, galloping past a Foreign Legion company. That company has lost all its officers and was commanded by an American sergeant named Kilburn. They kill half of Mulay's men, but their flank is open because a troop of Senegalese soldiers hadn't moved up to their assigned position. Mulay escapes.

Colonel Dubosquet lays the blame on the Legionnaires. Kilburn is busted to private and the entire unit spends a year as prisoners in all but name, building a road through rough terrain. They are guarded by the Senegalese, which produces a lot of anomosity between the two units. This evenually leads to a riot, which gets the Legionnaires imprisoned--once again guarded by the Senegalese.

In the meantime, an Intelligence officer is trying to convince the colonel that Mulay is back and is talking the Senegalese troops into mutiny. But Colonel Dubosquet won't listen. He's rebuilt Mulay's home town and is having a party--with officials from Morocco and France--to show off his accomplishments. He has complete faith that none of his troops will cause trouble.

Not surprisingly, his troops cause trouble. But Kilburn and his men have staged a jailbreak and... well, that might be a good thing for the French.

The climatic battle scene is a match in intensity to the beginning. Strong characters, a great plot, an authority figure just BEGGING for a comuppance, and an occasional dollop of humor make this story a winner. Newsom's Foreign Legion tales are all great, but this one might indeed be my favorite.

Click HERE to read it for yourself.