7 JUNE 2003, Page 33

Morbid morale-booster

From Mr David Wilson Sir: As is to be expected, Peter Jones's summing up of military morale is clear and concise (Ancient and modem, 31 May). There is, however, an ambiguity, and it is caught by the novelist John Masters (acting brigadier in the Burma campaign). Somewhere in his memoirs he writes to the effect that nothing cheers up troops more than the sight of a dead general. David Wilson Matlock, Derbyshire