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Evelyn Waugh
Unconditional Surrender
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4066338106445
Table of Contents
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Chapter I
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Chapter I
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Prologue
Locust Years
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[1]
When Guy Crouchback returned to his regiment in the autumn of 1941 his position was in many ways anomalous. He had been trained in the first batch of temporary officers, had commanded a company, had been detached for special duties, had been in action and acquitted himself with credit; he had twice put up captain's stars and twice removed them; their scars were plainly visible on his shoulder straps. He had been invalided home on an order direct from G. HQ. M.E. and the medical authorities could find nothing wrong with him. There were rumours that he had "blotted his copy-book" in West Africa. When he was commissioned in 1939 his comparative old age had earned him the soubriquet of "Uncle." Now he was two years older and the second batch of officers in training were younger than those who had joined with him. To them he seemed a patriarch; to him they seemed a generation divided by an impassable barrier. Once he had made the transition, had thrown himself into the mêlée on the anteroom floor, had said "Here's how" when he drank with them, and had been accepted as one of themselves. He could not do it a second time. Nor were there any longer mêlées and guest nights, nor much drinking. The new young officers were conscripts who liked to spend their leisure listening to jazz on the wireless. The First Battalion, his battalion, followed Ritchie-Hook, biffing across the sands of North Africa. A draft of reinforcements was sent out to them. Guy was not posted with them. Hookforce, all save four, had been taken prisoner in Crete. He had no comrades-in-arms in England except Tommy Blackhouse who returned to raise another Special Service Force. They met in Bellamy's and Tommy offered him a post on his staff, but the shadow of Ivor Claire lay dark and long over Commandos and Guy answered that he was content to soldier on with the Halberdiers.