Desert Warrior. By Patrick Hore-Ruthven. (John Murray. 3s.) THIS pleasantly
produced little volume contains 14 short Poen" by the late Major Hore-Ruthven and a portrait of the author, along with a preface by Lady Gowrie, the poet's mother, and bri accounts of his military career by General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson and a fellow-officer. It must be regarded'more as a graceful memorial to a fine soldier and a charming young man than a serious contribution to contemporary verse. Hore-Ruthven joined the Rifle Brigade in 1936, he saw service in India, Palestine and North Africa ; he was mortally wounded in a Commando operation in 5942. As a poet, there is little evidence that he was other than a dilettante—soldiering was his job, and he loved it. General Wilson tells us " he had in his make-up something that harked back to the ancient days of chivalry," and this romantic attitude to the business of fighting is apparent in his verses, which are musical and well-turned ; they exhibit, too, the author's deep love of beauty and of fineness of character—not least of that high courage of which he himself was so outstanding an example. •
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