The Division in Fiction

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 429, 12 September 1947, Page 10

The Division in Fiction

FOR THE- REST OF OUR LIVES. By Dan Davin. Nicholson and Watson, London,

(Reviewed by Major-General

H. K.

Kippenberger

AVE you read Dan Davin’s book? If not, you should, and then you will be pleased or shocked, delighted or disgusted, but in any case deeply impressed. And you will have read a book that time, the infallible judge, may certify as great. At the least it is a powerful and penetrating study of New Zealanders at war, not Englishmen or Scots or Australians, but New, Zealanders. Davin is a Southlander and a Rhodes Scholar from Otago University. He took

his Oxford degree with first-class honours in classics and at present he is on the publishing staff of the Clarendon Press. It is his ambition to be a novelist and he once thought he had 10 years’ writing in him. I think and hope that he has many more. His first novel, Cliffs of Fall, was published in 1943. One English reviewer said that it was a brilliant failure, a failure only because he aimed so high, and if For the Rest of Our Lives is a failure-I don’t think it isthe reason is the same. He was a platodn commander and Battalion Intelligence Officer in the 23rd Battalion in Greece and Crete, where he was wounded. Then he had a long spell on the Intelligencd Staff in G.H.Q. Cairo, returned to New Zealand Division in Tunisia, was Divisional Intelligence" Officer for much of the Italian Campaign, and was then transferred to the War Office Intelligence Staff. He is writing of things that he saw, and he saw with a startling clarity and much understanding. IS three main characters, Tony, Frank and Tom, are junior infantry officers, reminding me, among New Zea-

landers, only of three particular officers, considerably scrambled, and those three were nicer fellows than Tony, Frank and Tom. They are all inclined to introspection, to airing their very considerable erudition in a way that the three spared us, they apparently suffer from no inhibitions, are prof6undly disillusioned’ in everything else, utterly tolerant, but great despisers of the British and the British way and ¢correspondifigly keen admirers of the Russians, not at all common types in the New Zealand Army. Frank is posted to G.H.Q. in Caire and in no time he enters into a lia with a decidedly easy lady and has struck up a wide acquaintance in a demi-monde that most of us didn’t discover. With one thmg and another he likes the life, and has quite a long

struggle with his conscience and his slut before getting himself post: ed back to the Division » Tom and Tony seem tc spend more time in the field, but when in Cairo they also act as the Cairenes apparently do, and Tony gets himself and his girl into a bad tangle and even has to contemplate marriage. This all rather surprises me. Most simple souls had_ said their good-byes and borne the wrench years before and far away. To get back to the Division was the great thing. Cairo oi Maadi or Haifa were episodes, pleasant or tiresome interruptions, and the Division would not have been what it was if many had found it so difficult to leave desks and flats and bedrooms in Cairo, or had

even occupied them. There with the Division were the best friends in the world, there unselfishness and courage, straight dealing and devotion budyed up the weak and inspired the strong, there were the units that men were proud to belong to, there the siren call of death and wounds, danger and privation, the comradeship of high endeavour, there, though we scarcely said it to ourselves, we lived on the heights, in the fields of romance. No ene knows this better than Dan Davin. I think that his theme, the difficulty of leaving the fleshpots of Cairo, is a bit thin. ’ I suppose there had to be somethin’ to provide the contrast. It enables hiny to give an extremely good picture of some phases of life in Cairo and in that rabbit warren, G.H.Q. Middle East. Any combatant soldier is quite ready to believe that the goings on there were just as futile, conscienceless, and stupid as they are depicted. That is probably unjust, but it was our fixed belief and it is satisfactory to find it supported even in (continued on next page)

f a : (continued from previous page) fiction. It is most cleverly done; these worthless women and very peculiar men appear real enough. Most of us didn’t meet them or perhaps were too simple to recognise them for what they were. What Davin sees he sees clearly and in relief. Some of these unpleasant folk and curious scenes are perfectly portrayed. Again it is most competently done, but Davin has more in him than merely to give us pictures of lounge lizards and prostitutes. T is when he goes to the field that I think he touches greatness; certainly I have never read a better war book. There is not qa false note. The battle scenes are superbly done, 4th Brigade headquarters during the assault on Belhamed, the over-running of the 20th on that fatal hill and again on the evil day of Ruweisat; 26 Battalion in the El Mreir depression and poor Jan Peart’s hard decision, the long fighting advance to Miteiriya Ridge, all are without fault. The batmen chat with one another beside the trucks as one used to hear them, the drivers are the authentic slaves and "masters of their trucks and friends and critics of their officers that one remembers, the scraps of conversation are as cne heard them eng ago, there is no mistake or slip in idiom or fault in atmosphere. There is a perfect sketch of a Divisional Conference, though it slightly pains me to read that Brigadiers were "hard censorious men." I thought " we were such nice good-natured chaps.

~ me — In’ a few words, Davin shows a deep understanding of what the burden of command and responsibility meant. Most of the characters are recognisable, unmistakably so and miraculously right; even those with only a few words say the right ones, invariably. Finally, underlying all and often outspoken is the fierce, just pride in the Division, the splendid, undefeatable, matchless Division. There may have been other Divisions as good, but we didn’t meet them and never had cause to think there were. A great deal could be forgiven the New Zealand writer who so fully recaptures and revives that pride. AS soldiers’ talk as coarse as here appears? It was, lady, and more so. Our soldiers swore terribly in Flanders and they swore frequently in Libya, very frequently. Still there is an injustice in the implication that all went forthwith to the Berka on arrival in Cairo. This is no ‘more true than the implication that all officers had mistresses or were personae gratae in bordellos. If the talk was so coarse, is it necessary to put it all in print? Well, if you want realism you must put up with realism; it isn’t always nice. I’m not certain that I agree, being a little prudish and in favour of the reticences. Despite his determined attitude of disillusion and scepticism I do not think Dan Davin is destined only to be a minor prophet of nihilism. A great deal can be expected of him and .there is much that is great in this book.