Battle Piece
Now We Are Enemies. By Thomas Fleming. (Gollancz, 25s.) Ii is only partly true to say, as is often said, that the British like to glory in their defeats: it is more to the point that they like to celebrate individual defeats and reverses—Balaclava, Arnhem—in wars which they eventually won or didn't, at any rate, lose. In wars that we have in the long run lost, and especially in our two wars against Americans, we slur over even our vic- tories—who has ever heard of Bladensberg, and what regiments wear laurels on their colours to commemorate the entry into Washington, an enemy capital, made possible by that resounding victory? Bunker Hill was a British victory, too, even though it began with a blunder, made a disastrous war certain, and was won at the cost of 226 killed and 828 wounded, 90 officer casualties out of 250, against 140 American dead, 271 wounded, 30 captured. Among the troops engaged were men who had fought at Minden, and they were led by the officer who had headed the climbing party at Quebec. They were the best troops in the world. Their two attacks up the hill, at a temperature of ninety degrees, in their elaborate regimentals of scarlet and of green, burdened with 120 lb. of gear, in the face of and outnumbered by entrenched sharpshooters commanded by seasoned frontiersmen, and their capture of the hill at bayonet point with their third attack was a feat that even Minden regi- ments could be proud of.
Mr. Fleming is an American, and his book is as stirring and as magnanimous as patriots on either side could wish for. Although it is lively with incident and reported speech, he can claim that he has two witnesses for every anecdote and every phrase. Only in some of his detail of the British regiments and their uniforms is he occa- sionally at fault: five other regiments will bridle to read that the 23rd (Royal Welch Fusiliers), dis- tinguished though they were at Minden, were the 'heroes' of that battle (they were left of the line, and lost fewer men than the 12th and the 20th, on the right); and the grenadier companies of line regiments did not wear tall black bearskin caps in 1775. But on the discipline, tactics and arms of the British, Mr. Fleming is almost as good as he is in the narrative of action.
CYRIL RAY
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