Patrol North Africa 1943 - a Story of the Desert War by Fred Majdalany

My novel research entails seeking out primary sources: writers who published in the era I'm writing about. This quest for such voices has led to some amazing discoveries.

Fred Majdalany's short novel Patrol (1953) takes the reader into the heart and mind of Tim Sheldon, who leads a night patrol in the WWII desert war in North Africa. The story is simple -- seven men go on a terrifying night patrol randomly assigned by ill-informed officers far away in a comfortable club. Only five return. 

Tiny details carry the reader into Sheldon's mind. We are party to his thoughts as he washes and dries his feet, carefully soaping an incipient blister so it doesn't get worse. Other deftly drawn characters and scenes limn outlines which the reader's imagination can easily fill in. 

Far from where Tim dries his feet in a trench, we glimpse of Divisional Headquarters, a colonial farmhouse turned into "a credible semblance of an English country club." Captain Puttennam-Brown, "a Coldstream officer with a tight, petulant mouth," is obsessing about wine for the mess when the General calls him in to discuss plans for patrols. Eager to complete the transport arrangements for the table wine from White Feathers Abbey, the Captain hurriedly suggests a patrol to White Farm, which he happens in the moment to see on the wall map.  

Accompanying Tim, the reader shares the sequence of feelings flowing through the patrol leader who is responsible for the men. Though he has carefully scouted the route ahead of time, moving by compass in the silent darkness fills him with doubt and fear. "Sustained concentration and the aloneness of responsibility could press on the brain till you felt it must burst and you hated those with which you could not share the burden." Finding the first landmark allows Tim to relax "in a small way," but then fatigue rolls through him "like a shock." As they walk along beside the road, his emotions change again. "While nine-tenths of his mind remain[s] frozen with alertness, concentration, and the burden of leading, the other tenth slipped into...the boredom of the infantryman, mute and sightless, forcing one foot past the other in rhythmical timeless progress through the night from nowhere to nowhere."  

In the "long brown tent" of a hospital, with its "hurt filthy figures lying on baby-blue beds packed closely together," Tim is parked beside a French officer who is trying to teach himself English. He's "a nice fellow" who sets a fine example, but Tim finds his "ineffective diligence" maddening. The hospital padre, "a small bird of a man," always comes in "as though he were already late for six other more important appointments and was fitting you in at great inconvenience." The paperback thriller he provides in response to Tim's request for a book has the last thirty pages torn out. 

The officer class, with their "parched wives from India who love rank more dearly than their husbands," are "deeply receptive to anyone officially classed as an expert." First dismissive of the "new craze for psychiatry," they laugh off the "Trick Cyclists" until the General becomes "very keen" on psychiatry. Then, "uncritically accepting something outside their ken, they litter the back areas with psychiatrists and are pained because the bad soldiers take advantage of them." 

Marching along, Tim thinks about how he heard somewhere that courage is moral capital of which everyone has a limited supply. "How much left in the bank now? Six overdrafts here, Doc." Then his mind wanders to trousers, and to the "getaway bag" devised between him and his batman after the last time he was wounded in the leg. "No more getting caught again with...no bloody kit, no washanshave ten days, ten bloody days, no wash, no shave. Special haversack, we decided...put in books, towel, soap, socks, shave kit, toothbrush. If wounded, tie haversack to body when they send me away. Next time we'll be wounded in luxury, we said. Oh yes: and trousers...Not going to be caught again in Algiers with one trouser leg - no fear, no bloody fear."

In this stark story of the damage wrought by war, the beauty and evocation of the language offers a consoling counterpoint. Algiers represents "the paradise of Leavetown -- glamorous, sordid, beautiful, noisy, vast, crowded, desirable" as the bus groans in low gear "up the rue Michelet, the handsome main street which climbs through half a dozen hairpin turns from the heart of the port" affording tantalizing glimpses, "a kaleidoscopic impression of dense military traffic ceaselessly choking the crowded streets; of three-car trams teeming within, festooned without, with Arabs, so that you wondered how anyone inside the cars escaped or collected a fare; of mysterious smells in which garlic and charcoal and betel could be identified; of ships, warehouses, shops, offices, alleys, steps, cafes, cinemas, and tier upon tier of pretty red-roofed houses rising steeply to the peak of the hill which towered above the harbour." 

Then the town disappears and Tim finds himself in a real hospital, "large and light and antiseptic ...a well-run institution that has little to do with the war." Under the care of "real English nurses," his wound heals, and the initial joy of lying in a clean white bed palls. Sated with the sleep he wanted so badly when he arrived, he now feels the antiseptic bed constrains him like a prison. Lying there, he waits and watches for the visits of Sister Murgatroyd, a nurse he deems to have "too much character" to be beautiful or even pretty. 

After recovering from his first wound, Tim enjoys some time with a fellow officer who takes him to see a unique troop of Berber dancers, and he persuades the nurse to come on a date. After this exposure to the distance between his dreams of bliss and reality, he wants nothing more than to get back to the battalion. There, filled with responsibility and trepidation, he leads his men by night on the ill-starred patrol across landmarks they've dubbed Piecrust, Burnt Tank Ridge, Twin Tits and Bond Street.

By taking us into the minutiae of Tim's thoughts and showing us the context, Fred Majdalany takes us into the heart of deep universal themes, showing us how men lead and obey and bond and cope in war, and revealing how they view duty and responsibility and fantasize about rest and women and the variety of things that interested them -- sports and music and art -- before they were torn in youth from all hope of ever enjoying ordinary lives.

Because of the persistence of grass

Because of the persistence of grass, life goes on

Season to season, generation to generation.

Stubborn grass roots cling to the earth,

Their generations trampled and eaten down by cattle. 

With the relentless persistence of grazing animals,

We humans seek wisdom, our driving desire

As persistent as the growth and regrowth of grass.

The human quest for wisdom is as perennial as the grass.

The War Widow by Tara Moss

Billie Walker is an experienced war correspondent whose missing European husband may or may not be dead. Back in Australia in 1946, she finds women reporters are getting sidelined to provide jobs for returned men. Needing to earn her living while awaiting news of Jack, who remains incommunicado, she moves into her late father's old office to follow in his footsteps as a private investigator.

Ms. Walker is fashionably dressed and easy on the eye. Her lipstick shade is Fighting Red. She wears a double-breasted trench coat and smokes on occasion, but avoids drinking alone. Her ally in the police is a woman, and her street informer - observant, fearless and Aboriginal - is female. Sam, her assistant, has a war-scarred hand - an asset in a dust-up. Normally shy, he takes to champagne "like some kind of truth serum." 

As well as treating readers to fresh versions of private eye tropes, Tara Moss judiciously tucks in details that reflect the atmosphere of the era. We're told that Billie's mother, like Marie Stopes, is in favour of women controlling their reproductive destinies, "despite what gray-haired men of religion had to say on the matter." We are also informed that "the great divide in Australia and elsewhere" is between those who served in the war and those who didn't.

Though not yet ready to admit her probable widowhood, Billie is well aware of the fate of the war widows of Australia - "some were objects of pity, others considered a threat." Those with children "received but a pittance," while childless widows got no pensions at all, since the men in charge believed they needed nothing more than another husband. 

In contrast to the poor and unemployed of the city, readers glimpse the lives of Sydney's upper crust. Occupying homes with maids' quarters at the top, many show off their furs and jewels at fancy clubs like The Dancers, where gangsters are known to hang out. Unconcerned about provenance, they buy up pricey art at an auction house run by a well-dressed crook. 

It is rumoured that the Australian government plans to flush out cash hoarded by war-time black-market racketeers by calling in all existing banknotes and replacing them with a new issue. As she broods over this, the detective concludes that a certain auction house is a likely place for the dirty money to be laundered before it becomes worthless.

To keep her mind off her probable widowhood, Billie loves to lose herself in the excitement of the chase. She enjoys driving her Willys 77 roadster fast - even if it means using up her petrol coupons halfway through the month. She also carries a pearl-handled Colt in her stocking top in case of need. On receiving a hand-delivered note, she's hit by jolt of adrenalim, as she's unsure "whether to expect a death threat or an invitation to tea."

Tara Moss's book is an alchemy of humour and realism. Periodic references to the recent war are described in bald and  chilling terms with references to veterans walking around Sydney with skin grafts on their faces, the result of "airman's burn." We're also told that Ravensbruck women slaves "made parts for Daimler-Benz or electrical components for the Siemens Electric Company," while others worked on Hitler's V2 rocket or "were made to pull a huge roller to pave the streets." 

Yet except when describing such harsh historic realities, the tone of the prose is generally light. The setting being Australia, there has to be a reference to a crocodile: in this case, one that escaped from a zoo. The author also has fun with double entendres. In one scene where Billie is intent on her driving as and Sam follow a gunman in a high-speed car chase, her assistant tells her he's out of bullets. "Take mine...take it now," she instructs Sam, offering her own gun from her beribboned holster, just as the wind blows her dress up to expose her thigh. 

Later, when the country cops assume Sam is the driver and car owner, we're told the "sun had set on both the day and Billie's patience." She has good reason, as the rural police seem "more suspicious of her [a woman!] driving" than of the testimony of "a soldier's attempts to bring down a couple of criminals with his long-barreled farm gun." 

Back in Sydney, she has to report to Central Police Station, where she feels the male stares at her back "as palpable as hands" and can "almost smell the testosterone." This sexist attitude greatly annoys her, because she knows that her friend Constable Annabelle Primrose "could have wrestled bank robbers with only one arm, if only they'd let her."

Throughout the book, Moss's use of language surprises, delights, and reflects the character of the feisty detective. A corrupt cop clenches his fists "tighter than a pauper grips a coin," and the auctioneer "conducts himself in a sedate and formal manner that wouldn't have been amiss in a mortician." The paid thug who makes the mistake of kicking Billie looks "underfed and over-beaten." After she pushes her hatpin into his ankle, we see him "standing on one leg like a cowardly flamingo."

Billie also shares occasional terse philosophical observations. The motivations for murder, she opines, are "money, jealousy and power." Considering the relationship between war and wealth, she thinks about "those who did well out of the debacle," and comments to Sam that "'wars wouldn't be nearly so common if no one made money from them.'" On the sober topic of mortality, she realizes how "the proximity of death taught you that you only had this moment."

A classic of its type, this book lightens the tone and shakes up the trope. As a bonus, reading this mystery includes a chance to learn a bit of history. I hope we'll soon be hearing more about the cases of Billie Walker and her sidekick Sam.