Nevil Shute never disappoints me, one of my favourite authors. This 1947 post-war novel delivers a solid story, with four intersecting characters rich with life's experiences.
In 1943, a bomber goes down outside Penzance, and four soldiers aboard - just in their early twenties - are taken to hospital in various states, two of which are facing court martial. Jackie Turner is the worst off, bandaged with shrapnel in his head, the men taking turns talking to him to pass time. The boyish RAF pilot Phil Morgan talks about his wife in London, whom he doesn't see is unfaithful and unconcerned for him. Duggie Brent is a wiry paratrooper, trained in Commando unit as a killing machine through progressively lethal tactics to ultimately eliminate with his bare hands. He is wanted on charges he killed a man outside a pub over a slight insult prior to being deployed. The fourth man is Dave Lesurier, a coloured American soldier assigned to engineer US airbases, who was discovered with a cut throat in a manhunt.
Twenty years later, Jackie Turner is a London businessman, whose doctor has given six months to live; the shrapnel they could not remove causing blackouts. Remembering the men, his wife encourages him to seek them out.
The majority centres on Phil, rumoured to have been shot down in Burma. Jackie makes the trip up the delta to Mandinaung where he finds Phil prospering. His plane crashing in the jungle, he encountered the Burmese Independence Army and helped them fight the occupying Japanese, before turning himself over as a P.O.W. When the Japanese left in 1945, he helped rebuild roads, boats, and railways, finding reconstruction lucrative. He is now a respected leader with his new Burmese wife Ma Nay Htohn.
The story of Duggie involves the trial where it is argued that violent pub attack was a direct response of his Commando training.
But the fate of Dave, the American soldier is most unique - and definitely of its time. The coloured Army men were posted to a small English village to construct an American air base. Welcomed by residents, the men became so friendly with the townsfolk, they were soon stepping out for walks with the young women. The base complete, the white Army soldiers move in and find the negros need to be put back in their place. Things must now be segregated, the pub will now be for whites only, the girls will not associate with the coloured men. This backfires as the pub owner posts a sign Whites are not welcome, the town is firmly on the coloured side, and the racist battle escalates. Dave had his eye on a young girl, and when he steals a quick kiss one night, the gossip multiplies until it becomes attempted rape, and he must escape a vigilante mob of white soldiers.
This is of its time - 1947 - and I read it as such. The author calls the men negros, the men themselves use the term coloured, but the American and British call them the N word. It is used repeatedly, some paragraphs in each sentence. I choose to view this as a natural custom of the time, especially in Army circles, but to other readers, this may come as a shock. It certainly is disturbing to read, but gratifying to see the white soldiers are shown egregiously in the wrong by all accounts.
Shute manages to merge these four men into an engaging story, even adding a satisfying ending, showing his expertise as a novelist. Through the tales of adventure, court drama, and racism, there is the underlying emotional depth that makes these characters memorable.
My other reviews for Nevil Shute:
1947 / Hardcover / 383 pages
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