A Battle Is Fought to Be Won

“Not since Graham Greene was creating his adventures has there been a writer with such haunting quality, the sweet sound of sad beauty, which Clifford engenders.” - New York Herald Tribune

Deep in the Burmese jungle, the British, hopelessly outnumbered, were retreating before the fanatical hordes of the Japanese army.

Captain Tony Gilling’s job, with one depleted and exhausted company, was to hold their advance for a few precious hours, to earn a brief but vital respite for the rest of the British troops.

Far away from his bank job at home he is unprepared, deeply shaken and thrown into turmoil by the savagery of the battle.

Resources are quickly haemorrhaged, men lost and the outlook is painfully bleak.

Faced with looming death and morbid uncertainty, in the space of three days he learnt what it was to fight an enemy to whom death meant nothing and who tortured without compunction.

Antagonised by subedar Nay Dun who is painfully aware of Gilling’s lack of military experience, paranoia and wavering loyalties cast a dark shadow over an already horrifying experience.

Willing himself to join in the ruthlessness that surrounds him in order to survive, Gilling is torn by guilt when he witnesses the savagery inflicted on the men he has been charged with commanding. Wracked with guilt and terror he begins to drift in and out of lucid states.

A letter from his father merely adds to his horror. Humiliated by his own failures in a world that was not his, torn between a longing for life and safety and a senseless urge to save the demented remains of his pride, he learnt finally the full torment of fear, hatred and death.

Praise for the Francis Clifford:

“Not since Graham Greene was creating his adventures has there been a writer with such haunting quality, the sweet sound of sad beauty, which Clifford engenders.” - *New York Herald Tribune *

“Mr. Clifford constructs an anatomy of fear, drawing in with fine, sharp lines the exposed and shrinking nerves.” - *The Times *

Francis Clifford is a pseudonym of Arthur Leonard Bell Thompson. He served in the Second World War and was a British writer of crime and military novels.

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