Hugh Dormer's Diaries. (Cape. 8s. 6d.) " THE evening sun
was glowing on the brick walls of the kitchen garden and on the wild daffodils under the chestnut trees, as we made the final preparations for our journey that night. I sat in a chair outside and read Shakespeare's Henry V while the wind ruffled my hair." The opening sentences of this diary of a young Catholic Guards officer killed in Normandy in 1944 give weight to the publishers' claim in their blurb that " this little book may well prove to be a classic of the war." The end of this war, like that of its predecessor, has produced its pathetic and inevitable harvest of the letters, journals and memories of boys killed in it, published post- humously by their families and friends. Too often these pious collections are unsuited for a wider circle than the immediate one of friends and colleagues of the dead. Among such volumes, this journal of Hugh Dormer's adventures in occupied France, where he was twice dropped by parachute on secret sabotage missions, stands luminously out. It is simple, clear and unaffected, frank and also exciting. His experiences included pursuit by German bloodhounds, two sojourns in occupied Paris, two escapes across the Pyrenees. His piety and reliance on God are singularly marked, and the last notes in the book, written just before he was killed beside his flaming tank in the summer fields of Normandy, show what is surely an unusual and happy acceptance of death. The anonymous editor has performed his duties with an admirable restraint, avoiding .a lauda- tory preface and leaving this intrepid English youth to speak, quietly and humorously, for himself.
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