WITH THE INDIAN DIVISION

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 504, 18 February 1949, Page 13

WITH THE INDIAN DIVISION

REPORT MY SIGNALS. By Anthony BrettJames. Harrap. [GNORING the advice given him on first joining the army, never to volunteer for anything, the author of this book promptly volunteered to serve with the Indian Army, and was posted to the (continued on next page)

BOOK REVIEWS (Contd)

5th Indian Division, with which he remained from August, 1942, till October, 1945. For most of his three and a-half years’ service he was a signal officer with the 9th Indian Brigade, in which capacity he fought through the Burma campaign from Arakan onwards. Report My Signals is for the most part a personal memoir of this campaign.:As an intellectual cast by the exigencies of war among hearty people who disliked classical music and whose conversation had certain narrow limits, Mr. Brett-James occasionally found the society of his peers uncongenial, but his interest in human beings was always insatiable. The stress of his narrative is upon human behaviour rather than historical event: much of his characterisation is both vivid and profound, but pages are devoted to short biographical sketches of men whose part in the story is negligible, as a consequence of which the reader’s memory is burdened with a perfect glossary of names that seldom recur. The author displays throughout a sympathetic understanding of the Indians, whom he liked-especially the Madrassis, a race not usually held in high regard for their fighting qualities by British officers. Their English was a per- petual source of amusement to him, and one or two delightful passages are quoted. For. instance-‘Since seven seven months over I am in possession of a ‘DOQ’ called as ‘Blacky, but during the further period also I am in great anxious to continue my life with the above mentioned as in highest sympathy. So that I am requesting your kind honour to grant me a ‘LICENCE’ to above stated for the prevention of the external troubles. For which act of kindness I shall be ever grateful to you by the blessing. of Gracious." Mr. Brett-James’s own prose is not altogether devoid of singularities. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom accompanied his travels, and I suspect him of trying to emulate Lawrence’s elaborate style with unfortunate results. Nouns seldom go unqualified and of the legion of adjectives some appear to have been chosen with an eye to euphony rather ‘than meaning. The Nigerians brought fear upon the enemy by the ferocity of their massive aggression." The author and his men slept with their boots on so that they might be "ready for all darkened emergencies." Much of the writing is over-spiced and affected: "When men slept, the enemy sent through the bluish-black murk a: rare assault of shells," and (in a different context) "this weighty steel flail was unleashed against the yellow progress," are examples. But Mr. Brett-James, one gathers, is still a very young man, and extravagance in all its forms is youth’s prerogative. Moreover his chapters describing a trip beyond Darjeeling in the Himalayas are sufficiently delightful to compensate for manv shortcomings.

R.

M.

Burdon