- Fraser, George MacDonald.
Quartered Safe Out Here.
New York: Skyhorse Publishing, [1992, 2001] 2007.
ISBN 978-1-60239-190-1.
-
George MacDonald Fraser
is best known as the author of the
Flashman
historical novels set in the 19th century. This autobiographical account of
his service in the British Army in Burma during World War II is
fictionalised only in that he has changed the names of those who
served with him, tried to reconstruct dialogue from memory, and
reconstructed events as best he can from the snapshots the mind
retains from the chaos of combat and the boredom of army life
between contact with the enemy.
Fraser, though born to Scottish parents, grew up in Carlisle, England,
in the region of
Cumbria. When he
enlisted in the army, it was in the
Border Regiment,
composed almost entirely of Cumbrian troops. As the author notes,
“…Cumbrians of old lived by raid, cattle theft, extortion,
and murder; in war they were England's vanguard, and in peace her
most unruly and bloody nuisance. They hadn't changed much in four
centuries, either…”. Cumbrians of the epoch retained their
traditional dialect, which may seem nearly incomprehensible to those
accustomed to BBC English:
No offence, lad, but ye doan't 'alf ga broon. Admit it, noo. Put a
dhoti on ye, an' ye could get a job dishin 'oot egg banjoes at Wazir
Ali's. Any roads, w'at Ah'm sayin' is that if ye desert oot 'ere — Ah
mean, in India, ye'd 'ev to be dooally to booger off in Boorma —
the ridcaps is bound to cotch thee, an' court-martial gi'es thee the
choice o' five years in Teimulghari or Paint Joongle, or coomin' oop
t'road to get tha bollicks shot off. It's a moog's game. (p. 71)
A great deal of the text is dialogue in dialect, and if you find that
difficult to get through, it may be rough going. I usually dislike
reading dialect, but agree with the author that if it had been rendered
into standard English the whole flavour of his experience would have been
lost. Soldiers swear, and among Cumbrians profanity is as much a part
of speech as nouns and verbs; if this offends you, this is not your book.
This is one of the most remarkable accounts of infantry combat I
have ever read. Fraser was a grunt—he never rose above the
rank of lance corporal during the events chronicled in the book
and usually was busted back to private before long. The campaign
in Burma was largely ignored by the press while it was
underway and forgotten thereafter, but for those involved it
was warfare at the most visceral level: combat harking back to
the colonial era, fought by riflemen without armour or air
support. Kipling of the 1890s would have understood precisely
what was going on. On the ground, Fraser and his section had little
idea of the larger picture or where their campaign fit into the
overall war effort. All they knew is that they were charged with
chasing the Japanese out of Burma and that “Jap”
might be “half-starved and near naked, and his only weapon
was a bamboo stake, but he was in no mood to surrender.” (p. 191)
This was a time where the most ordinary men from Britain and the
Empire fought to defend what they confidently believed was
the pinnacle of civilisation from the forces of barbarism and
darkness. While constantly griping about everything, as soldiers
are wont to do, when the time came they shouldered their packs,
double-checked their rifles, and went out to do the job. From
time to time the author reflects on how far Britain, and the rest
of the West, has fallen, “One wonders how Londoners survived
the Blitz without the interference of unqualified, jargon-mumbling
‘counsellors’, or how an overwhelming number of 1940s
servicemen returned successfully to civilian life without benefit
of brain-washing.” (p. 89)
Perhaps it helps that the author is a master of the historical
novel: this account does a superb job of relating events as
they happened and were perceived at the time without relying
on hindsight to establish a narrative. While he doesn't abjure the
occasional reflexion from decades later or reference to
regimental history documents, for most of the account you are
there—hot, wet, filthy, constantly assailed by
insects, and never knowing whether that little sound you heard
was just a rustle in the jungle or a Japanese patrol ready to
attack with the savagery which comes when an army knows its cause
is lost, evacuation is impossible, and surrender is unthinkable.
But this is not all boredom and grim combat. The account of the air
drop of supplies starting on p. 96 is one of the funniest
passages I've ever read in a war memoir. Cumbrians will be Cumbrians!
August 2013 