Evening star., 1947-12-14
TheyFought
eirWorFor
Behind Lines
THE PURPLE PLAIN
BY H. E. Bates. (Atlantic Little,
Bro1on; $275J
Reviewed by
CARTER BROOKE JONES.

s5a Reviewed by
K. CARTER BROOKE JONES.
It is automatic, but sometimes
forgotten, that men at war have
much more than the enemy to fight.
They must contend with cold, heat,
mud, exhaustion, autocratic dis
cipline. Since there is combat only
at times, many soldiers have found
it easier to endure than the hard
ships that never leave them.
This is a novel of active service in
Burma late in the war. Somewhere
up ahead, around Mandalay, men
are fighting, but the foe faced by a
small British air force unit is the
sun. It's the dry season, and the
terrible sun beats down on the
camp around the air strip day after
day, turning tents into ovens, per-
meating the meager shade of oc-
casional trees. The only Japs who
come directly into the story fly over
In an air raid on a nearby village
a Ilit-run attack so swift that no
fighters can get up in time to inter-
cept them.
Yet this is a picture of war as
accurate, as typical as any descrip-
tion OF a battle could be. The
tropical heat clutches men In a
choking grasp. They live in dust
and breathe it as they wait in a sort
OF stupor for some higher command
to remember they're still in this
useless, by-passed spot. They never
say so, but you feel they'd gladly
face a horde of Japs if they could
escape the sun and the dust for a
day
Sharp Descriptive Writing.
"The Purple Plain emerged from
Mr.. Bates service as flyer in
Burma. I doubt If sharper piece
of descriptive writing has come out
of the war.
Forester is a youthful pilot sent
out from England recently after
heroic combat record across the
Channel. What his superiors didn't
know when they decorated him was
that he tried in his single-seat
fighter to kill himself because his
bride was killed in an air raid on
London during their honeymoon.
Forester found it wasn't as easy as
he had supposed to do away with
himself through reckless fighting.
He arrives in Burma bitter, disillu-
stoned, taciturn After a few weeks
IN that sun, he is almost impossible
to live with. His comrades think he
is cracking up and wonder what
they'd better do about it.
Then, in the village, he meets
Anna, the Burmese girl who has
been to college at Rangoon and
speaks English. His interest in
living is aroused again in the
ancient way that has brought sur
cease to many another man
stricken by tragedy Forester and
his boyish navigator 60 on a routine
flight. taking another officer to a
new post. The plane catches fire
Forester lands, on rock-strewn
plain. He and the passenger. Blore,
are thrown out virtually unhurt.
But the navigator, Darlington, is
badly burned. Forester carries the
boy, while the older, stouter Blore
struggles along with what water and
equipment they have salvaged.
Their tortured progress by night
along a narrow valley, desert in
the dry season, and their fitfu rests
by day under scraggy trees, with the
water giving out and Blore slowly
going mad, are a saga of suffering
and courage. The dreadful journey
is not without tragedy, but the end
ing is bright.
1t could be contended that Mr..
Bates weakened his story by inter-
jecting the usual sort of romance
and by contriving to make every
thing come out all right. Yet the
ending, as he develops it, does not
seem less plausible than a tragic
close would have been. And, after
all, it is primarily an account of
Forresters regeneration, which
starts with his love for Anna and
is completed when he takes respon-
sibility for two men unable to cope
with a crisis. There would have
been no particular point in leav-
ing the pilot to perish on the
FURNISHED plain in the interest of
stark realism.
Beyond that, even if the story had
been commonplace, which 1t cer-
tainly isN not. the power and the
beauty of the writing would have
redeemed it. THE Purple Plain" is
an admirable choice of the Literary
Guild for January.