7 MAY 1948, Page 26

. The War and Captam Farran

Winged Dagger. By Roy Farran. (Collins. 10s. 6d.)

IT is fair to assume that Captain Farran is only accidentally an author. His book shows sign of a hard core of original work which has been in places titivated and rearranged to give it a more literary aspect. These adornments are irritating, but the bulk of the book is an unaffected and extremely readable account of the author's experiences, from the day when he landed in Egypt in 1940 to his acquittal last year by court martial in Palestine of the charge of murdering a young Jew. Of this last incident, about which we have most curiosity, Captain Farran has least to say ; it is relegated to its proper place in the post-war epilogue of his adven- tures. Yet he manages to give a brief picture of that extraordinary chapter in the history of the British Army, now fortunately almost at an end, during which it was supposed to keep order in Palestine within the limits of the law, while its soldiers were liable to assassin- ation by a minority of the Jewish population without receiving any co-operation from the majority. Captain Farran himself was quite rightly acquitted of a charge which has, however, exposed him to a vendetta as cruel and melodramatic as was ever conceived by the extreme nationalists of Japan.

It would perhaps be unfair to say that Captain Farran " enjoyed the war," but he extracted all the exhilaration and humour possible from his campaigns and was fortunate in that his abilities sent him to commands where his courage and enterprise could have their maximum scope. There is a tremendous gusto in his descriptions of fighting in the desert and behind the lines in Italy and France which makes his narrative alive, and, as he sensibly writes from a strictly personal point of view, the reader can understand as much of the confused situations as he himself did at the time ; sometimes this view-point embraces grand strategy, sometimes it narrows to the few yards immediately in front of him. But it is always a scene