Adventure Story
Safety Last. By Col. W. F. Stirling. (Hollis & Carter. 18s.) THERE is hardly a page in this book which does not read like something rout of G. A. Henty or John Buchan. For Colonel Stirling has had a full and adventurous life. He got a D.S.O. in the Boer War; he . served in the Egyptian army in the deepest South of the Sudan; he retired to grow fruit in British Columbia; he was secretary of the Gezira Sporting Club in Cairo—all before he reached the age of thirty-five. The Great War brought him a series of fantastic adventures in the Middle East (including a period of service with Lawrence of Arabia), a well-deserved reputation as an Arab expert and another D.S.O. The 'twenties began with an appointment as governor of the Sinai province of Egypt, from which he moved on to become governor of Jaffa and Tel-Aviv in the early days of the Palestine mandate. But his sympathies with the Arab cause were too marked for the British administration, and he soon found himself described as redundant. The next assignment was to reorganise the Ministry of the Interior in Albania, where he spent eight years creating the Albanian . gendarmerie. There followed an interlude in which he occupied himself (among other things) in exporting Paris models from London to South Africa, plotting a revolution in Liberia, working as assistant porter le Marks and Spencer (rising to floor walker and eventually buyer), helping to film The Four Feathers, and directing a textile companY in Rumania. World War II found him, somewhat out of character, in charge of the overseas telephone censorship in London; but after Dunkirk he flew off at less than twenty-four hours' notice to Athens, and for some time he was engaged in organising Albanian political émigrés in Athens, Belgrade, Istanbul, Cairo and Jerusalem. But almost inevitably he found his way into the Spears mission to the Levant States, and after the war settled down, at the age of sixty-six, in business in Damascus where, four years ago, he was attacked ill his house by three assassins, as Lord Kinross describes in an epilogue. But, as an Arab was heard to ask after the news of the incident and of the Colonel's survival got around, "Did they really think they could kill Colonel Stirling with only six shots?" It would be something of an understatement to say that Colonel Stirling is a man of action. lie is in fact that rare type, the man who really is prepared to go anywhere and do anything, and to do it exceedingly well. His book is a fascinating demonstration of how much most of us can miss by refusing to take chances with our careers; it is packed with incident, and it contains illuminating sidelights on the great, such as Kitchener, Allenby, Lawrence, Feisal of Iraq, King Zog and Wavell. Nobody need expect to find it political wisdom of great profundity, for it is perhaps natural that a man of his kind should be apt to see the black or white but little in between. But it is a work full of Spirit, for Colonel Stirling evidentlY enjoys the good things of life, including his surroundings; and there are passages which will be nostalgic for those who have known the beauty of the veldt by night, or the Sinai desert, or the mountains of Albania. Colonel Stirling has written a most enjoyable book, and - one puts it down with admiration for the range of his experience.
BICKHAM SWEET-ESCOTT.
Previous page
