Marching On
With the Guards to Mexico! By Peter Fleming. (Hart-Davis, 16s.) PROSE writers, whose experience of the world is limited to their typewriters, two or three Paris cafes, a trip to Italy and one another's wives, almost always become great bores by the time- they are forty. Readers of Strix's column know, at least, that Colonel Fleming has plenty to write about. His spectacular travels in the Thirties were voyages of exploration; his distinguished military career appears to have been a long succession of highly irregular, though doubtless dutiful, adven- tures; at the drop of a hat he drives off to the Crimea, flying a Union Jack upside down. It is all very refreshing to read about, full of open air and fun, and induces that slightly euphoric state that only a blustery winter wind, not alcohol, can supply.
This is a rag-bag book, miscellanea of twenty years, half a dozen essays (including most pleasant tributes to Generals Wavell and de Wiart), a long fantasy, written in 1940, about Hitler arriving in England (which has inevitably dated a bit), and a comical piece about a senior civil servant who, with the utmost reluctance, becomes Ethel M. Dell or Ruby M. Ayres. A modest sort of book, written and perhaps even published to give pleasure, it will surely succeed in its admirable intention.
CONSTANTINE FITZGIBBON
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