When Jays fly to Barbmo

When Jays Fly to Barbmo

- Margaret Balderson

Book Three - Twelve books about WW2

The time is 1940, the location is a remote island in northern Norway and the protagonist is Ingeborg a teenage girl who has to make some big decisions. 

In early 1940, Norway was not yet involved in World War 2 and many Norwegians hoped that they would continue to remain uninvolved. Switzerland had claimed neutrality, Norway would claim it as well. While so many other countries had been secretly or not secretly building and fortifying their armed forces Norway was running late and had remained relatively unprepared. In fact when Germany swiftly and silently invaded Norway on the 9th of April (exactly 74 years to the day that I am writing this!), Norway did not even have a standing army. What Norway did have though was cities with harbors that didn't freeze in winter and when both the Allied and German forces wanted control over iron ore resources and and transport in the Baltic sea, Norway became an important playing piece in the war. 

Now to the story!

Ingeborg lives with her father Arne, her father's sister Anne-Sigri and an old friend of her father's called the Wood Troll. Just before this book begins, Ingeborg ran away from the small city boarding school because she missed her home and her father. However, now she is where she wanted to be, Ingeborg feels closed in and she is knows that the family has secrets. No one will talk to her about her mother who died in childbirth, her aunt adores her father but he can barely stand the sight of her, and Ingeborg wishes the Wood Troll would be more open and stop talking in riddles. 

In northern Norway where Ingeborg lives there are months on end of darkness during the winter. Ingeborg loves the arctic air, the brooding mountains and the deep blanket of snow but she also feels the 'dark sickness' when the endless night causes her to feel restless and scatty. 

Not long after the invasion Ingeborg's father is killed by Germans as he tries to help some Norwegian soldiers escape in his boat. The small family is distraught and Ingeborg demands the Wood Troll tell her about her mother. He finally complies. Her mother, Susanna, was a Lappish girl, the native wanderers of Norway. Susanna had married happily, but her natural wanderlust had made her feel trapped at the farm and her relaxed ways had created tension between her and Anne-Sigri. Days before she was to give birth to Ingeborg, Susanna was suffering from dark sickness and she made for the hills desperately wanting to be free. Arne was away on a fishing trip and by the time Susanna was found she was dead but Ingeborg, miraculously, was alive. Arne in despair blamed Anne-Sigri for Susanna's death.

Finally understanding her true identity, Ingeborg feels strongly that she wants to follow her mother's last journey. If she leaves she will have the free, exciting life she has always dreamt about. However, leaving will also mean turning her back on the dangers facing her community, on the Wood Troll who Ingeborg discovers is Jewish and her friend Viekko who is attempting to hide from the Germans so he won't be forced into service. 

While much of this book is focused on Ingeborg discovering her Lappish heritage and working out what she really wants for herself there is another theme. This other theme show the various reactions made by groups and individuals about the war. The Norwegians try to avoid it, the Lapps ignore it and Ingeborg's father faces it. The word "Barbmo" in the title refers to that place over the horizon that birds fly to at the start of winter. The Jay bird customarily stays throughout winter. In this novel, Ingeborg must decide if she will fly to safe Barbmo or stay and face out the winter.

"I am so heartily sick of not knowing who or what I am, I said."

This book would be in my top 20. 

Behold the "Charise Seal of Approval"!

A Child of Hitler

A Child of Hitler - Germany in the days when God wore a Swastika

- Alfons Heck

Book Two - Twelve book about WW2

This is a fascinating book and I think it needs to be a widely read book. If it is it not on high school and uni reading lists it should be.

Alfons Heck, the author of this book, was a teenager and member of the Hitler Youth in Germany during World War 2. War changes people and forces to them grow up fast and this is accurate for Alfons. Today, modern teenagers may spend their free time in packs of like minded school friends loitering in shopping centers or being car pooled to sporting events. In 1945, sixteen year old Heck had risen rapidly in the Hitler Youth to the rank of Gefolgschaftsfuhrer - an equal rank to an U.S Army or British Army Captain- and was in in command of nearly 2,800 boys and 80 girls in defensive duty on the Siegfried Line. This was unusual, not however for the reason that springs to mind. It was unusual because sixteen year old Gefolgschaftsfuhrers - which were not uncommon- usually were in command of only a measly unit of  800 boys. This mind boggling rank and command system was present because of two main reasons. Firstly, due to the horrendous loss of life suffered  by the German army. The army was running out of men and determined not to surrender they dipped into the youth of Germany recruiting boys as young as twelve years old. The second reason is that the members of the Hitler Youth had been schooled and indoctrinated in the ideologies of Nazism from the age of five and six. This resulted in the Hitler Youth being one of the most fanatic groups in Nazi Germany and they were desperate to fight in the war, even as defeat grew near. Many choose suicide over the thought of living in a world were their leader and hero, Hitler was not in command.

Whether or not these child soldiers should be held accountable for their actions is one of the key themes of this book. Currently the age of criminal responsibility ranges in age between 10 to 12  in different western countries. The idea is that a child under 10 does not have the mature capability to commit a serious crime and they cannot be charged with one. The members of the Hitler Youth were older than 10 but was the weight of their tainted education and the national intoxication of Hitler too much for them realise the true consequences of their actions? Did they even know the whole picture? Heck writes about his horror and shock when at the end of the war he was finally convinced that concentration camps had actually existed. In this book Heck writes that he and the boys relished their power and supremacy and they had believed in the master race. However, as he learnt the truth of what had happened during the war he felt deep anger and resentment to his elders who he felt deceived and delivered their children into a lie.

If you want to read a book that will make you feel as if you were with the Hitler Youth on their rallies, during training and when they faced active war, this is the book for you. Heck paints a very vivid picture of his experiences and since they are his own experiences the truth of what really happened to thousands of German children and teenagers thuds home.

"Tragically, now, we are the other part of the Holocaust, the generation burdened with the enormity of Auschwitz. That is our life sentence, for we became the enthusiastic victims of our Fuhrer."

Alfons Heck became an American citizen and toured the for nine years with Helen Waterford, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz. Together they gave talks to thousands of  people on their different perspectives and experiences of the Nazi era.

The Seventy-Four Rabbits

Rose under fire

– Elizabeth Wein

World War 2 was absolutely a ‘world’ war because of how it affected such a vast number of countries and people. I find that growing up in the British Commonwealth; I have understandably known much more about the British viewpoint and how it affected the British and Australian forces. World War Two caused many different reactions and consequences in other countries though and so to broaden my perspective, for the next twelve weeks I am going to read twelve books that focus on some different parts and attitudes of the war. I am going to be focusing on the war in Europe rather than in Africa, the east or at sea because it would already take me a life time to read through everything that has been written about the European side of the war!

               

Book One - Twelve books about WW2

Rose Justice is an 18 year old American who has lived through most of World War Two in perfect comfort and peace. In 1944 she decides to use her experience as a pilot to go to England and join the Air Transport Auxiliary which consists of female civilians who transport aeroplanes from factories and between aerodromes. While the work has many risks; flying in bad weather, landing on cracked runways and flying broken down aeroplanes to be fixed, Rose feels that her skills are wasted. Her father taught her to fly when she was 12 years old and Rose already has more flying experience then most of the male combat pilots. Rose eventually convinces her uncle who is high ranking in the air force to allow her to transport him to his station in newly allied occupied France. Everything is going well till on her flight back to England when Rose stumbles on a flying bomb - Vergeltungswaffe 1. These were fairly new bombs that travelled long distances before exploding, like our modern day missile. Rose has heard rumours that these bombs can be rammed or even diffused by just disturbing the air space around them. Without stopping to think she turns her aeroplane and makes attempt after attempt to stop the bomb without blowing herself up. She is finally successful but her happiness turns to fear as she realises that she has gone far off her route and is now lost over countryside that is quite likely still in German control.

In no time at all Rose is discovered by German aircraft and is transported deep into Germany. The Germans are very surprised that she is a female pilot and they are unsure what to do with her as she is an American civilian and not a combat pilot. Finally, more because they are unsure what to do with her, Rose is transported to the concentration camp Ravensbrck.

Concentration Camps were some of the worst places on earth, where people were systematically dehumanised and then starved and worked to death. Jews were the people who made up most of the inhabitants in concentration camps but they were not alone. Sometimes forgotten are the Poles, Russians, Czechs, Serbs, Ukrainians, Greeks, French, soldiers and civilians, religious minorities, social outcasts and members of resistance movements, to name just a few were also placed in these camps. Ravensbrck was a female camp with mainly French, Polish, Russian prisoners.  Rose was aware of concentration camps before she arrived at Ravensbruk but she had also viewed them sceptically and the horrible stories that emerged from them were very often considered simply anti- German propaganda. Rose didn’t believe it. That is until she arrived and met the Rabbits of Ravensbrck. These rabbits were seventy four Polish girls and women who were taken to Ravensbrck to be used as experiments. Their legs were cut open and deliberately damaged and then inside their wounds would be placed gangrene or bacteria and then everything would be bandaged in dirty linen. Their torturous wounds were made to replicate those being received by the German troops so that the doctors could experiment and observe the effects.

What is powerful about this book is that it that the story does not stop when the survivors escape or are released from Ravensbrck. It shows the near impossibility it was for the survivors to pick up the pieces of their lives and carry on. Inside the camp the women had banded together and fought to help each other survive so that there would be a time when someone could tell the world what had happened. However once released, fear, guilt of being alive and emotional scarring made speaking out difficult for many of them.

This novel covers very dark and serious topics and while Rose is a fictional character, the seventy four Rabbits were real women. The story, however is not completely black, instead it shows what happened when the women of Ravensbrck refused to give up being human beings and worked together, regardless of their different nationalities, to survive.

Because of the sacrifices of the women of Ravensbrck, sixty three rabbits survived the war to tell their stories.

“Izabela, Aniela, Alicia, Eugenia,

Stefania, Rozalia, Pelagia, Irena,

Alfreda, Apolonia, Janina, Leonarda,

Czeslava, Stanislava, Vladyslava, Barbara,

Veronika, Vaclava, Bogumila, Anna,

Genovefa, Helena, Jadviga, Joanna,

Kazimiera, Ursula, Vojcziechz, Maria,

Wanda, Leokadia, Krystyna, Zofia”

 (A mnemonic counting-out rhyme that includes all the given names of the seventy four Polish women experimented on in Ravensbrck. Some of the women had similar first names or shared a name, in the poem each name is only listed once.)

Your darkest fear?

Modern Phobias - a litany of contemporary fears

- Tim Lihoreau

What are you afraid of?

 You might have two answers. One that you would toss out for public examination if there was an ice breaker game and then one that is so terrifying or embarrassing you would never readily admit it. Hermione Grainger and I do not share the same fears. I haven’t read all the Harry Potter books. I know that makes me a leper and an outcast of my generation, but I think in the first book, there is a scene where some of the character’s deepest and darkest fears are revealed in front of their entire class. Hermione’s fear is not getting the highest grades on her assessment and that makes my straight B grade self chuckle. Being a straight B student is nothing to be ashamed of and I’m not. While doing well academically is something to aspire to and uphold, I know that academic grades a man does not make. Because I’ve never been in the struggle for top of the class at school instead I was working hard in the pool below to slot in those B’s, this fear is not one that I strongly relate to.

What I am afraid of are cockroaches and scary amusement park rides. If you go upside down, you feel as if you could fall out or you plunge towards the ground it is not natural and it is very, very wrong. I have however been on three of these rides in my life time so I think it is something I can overcome in the hour of greatest need. Cockroaches on the other hand are my kryptonite. You can waltz spiders, geckos, lizards and snakes past me and I won’t blink an eye. However, put me in a ten meter radius of a cockroach, dead or alive, and my strong, capable persona crumbles into a high pitched shrieking, shaking and terrified female. One of my students slipped me a plastic cockroach in a book and my scream would have been heard in New South Wales. She was not remorseful and in fact she was laughing so hard she literally fell off her chair, a fine example of teacher abuse.

Now onto the book. "Modern Phobias - a litany of contemporary fears" by Tim Lihoreau gives a name to some of the modern person's daily fears. Here are some of my favorites: 

• Aedificatorphobia - fear of builders
• Ceterinfanophobia - fear of other people's children
• Fabaphobia - fear of ordering in coffee shops
• Fortavocophobia - fear of speaking loudly while wearing headphones
• Idemophobia - fear of turning up in the same outfit as someone else
• Imitorphobia - fear of talking to someone in their accent
• Maginvalophobia - fear of being visited by an MP in hospital
• Perdetophobia - fear of having not saved one's work
• Stolidophobia - fear of starting a crossword in public
• Vilimusophobia - fear of lift music
• Abcellophobia - fear of leaving a toilet cubicle
• Oviphobia - fear of jumping on the bandwagon

                             

 If you feel embarrassed that you suffer from any of these phobias do you feel any better that they have an official name? Go now and claim as much sympathy as you can. 

These phobias make me laugh! But now on a deep and serious note, because you all know I am a deep and serious person. Should I laugh at people with these phobias? I know I don’t appreciate it when someone laughs at me when I am shaking over a cockroach situation. Are these phobias though, so far-fetched and ridiculous that laughing at them is what they deserve?

This post is finishing with more questions than answers. My English teachers would be proud.

Really? Come on.

Sparkling Cyanide

- Agatha Christie

Be warned, I will be talking about the end of the book.

I like to think that I am an observant person. In fact, I am really just waiting in anonymity until I am plucked from my life of obscurity by MI5 or any special spy force to become their chief of Observations. I would be useless as a normal spy though, because I am not ruthless enough. I can't even invade a country when playing Civilization on the computer because the little computer generated screaming voices rack me with guilt. So I am definitely not cut out to be a "By any means!" person, but sit me down in a crowed area and I could notice and remember a lot of interesting things that are happening and also many very mundane things.

It frustrates me on TV shows when the police are questioning witnesses of a crime and the witnesses are so vague with their answers.

 "Oh yeah," they say, "he was man all right, or actually, perhaps, a tall girl. Yeah, he or she robbed the bank right in front of me, but all I can tell you is that they may have had a hoodie on, maybe. Can't remember anything else about them though."

Come on. Really? 

In the book Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie the murder is finally solved after it is proved that the majority of characters are clod-polls and useless when it comes to anything to do with observation. 

I love Agatha Christie's novels, I think I have read all of them and many of them many times over. I think what keeps on drawing me back to Sparkling Cyanide is the fact that I think I could have solved the mystery on the spot, surely it would have been obvious?

In the novel the real confusion arises when the murderers rely on the characters ability to be observant. Silly murderers. My advice to them, never rely on people to act logical when you want them to most. 

The scenario in brief: There are seven party goers sitting having tea at a circular table in a restaurant. The murderers plan to knock off Iris who is seated next to innocent George. While all the party goers are dancing, one of the murderers slip cyanide into Iris's glass, so far, so good. The jolly dancers return to the table and innocent George quaffs down his drink. He then clutches at his throat and falls down dead. George has in fact died from the cyanide that was placed in Iris's glass. Everyone, including the murderers are shocked. This occurs because a flighty waiter accidentally places Iris's bag one seat further along then where she was originally seated. Iris just makes a bee line for her bag when she returns from dancing thus causing the entire table to move one seat further round then before and George sits down to cyanide surprise while Iris has the "brew that is true".

My problem with this scenario is this; surely, I mean surely, even if your bag was positioned at a different seat you would be still aware that you are facing in a different direction. You would be able to see tables that you hadn't before, people from different angles your whole point of view would have been affected. I can say I certainly would have realised I was in a different place. Is it just me? or are you all nodding your heads and saying "Here, here!"

I love Agatha Christie and I enjoy this book. However, I can't believe that in a group of seven people, no one would notice they had moved places.

Mistress Pat

Mistress Pat is the second novel of a series of two written by L.M.M Montgomery. Pat loves her house at Silver Bush obsessively but what she loves even more is the point in life that she is at. She loves her friends, she loves her loving family, she loves her cats and the secure bubble she lives in. Pat desperately does not want anything to change, but that of course is impossible. Friends die, people marry and move away and Pat scrabbles feverishly for constancy, pushing away her on-and-off fiance Hilary. Pat spends years holding fast to the Silver Bush house insisting to herself that she loves loneliness. Will Pat ever be strong enough to let go and move on?? It sounds so melodramatic.

I surprise myself daily that I enjoy reading books by L.M.M. Montgomery. The main characters are so frothy, floaty and feminine that I would normally scoff at people who enjoy them but here am I trapped in the spell of them. I even collect her books! I don't know why, but I do very enjoy her books. Maybe because they have a simplistic, other worldly charm. However, much as I laugh at them and they can really be very silly at times- sometimes I know the characters are more than a little insane with the strange things they say- hiding underneath the layers of giddy chatter is unexpected clarity of thought and strength of character.

Here are some classic L.M. moments, you chose, are they deep, inane or quirky?

“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”  - Anne of Green Gables

“There might be some hours of loneliness. But there was something wonderful even in loneliness. At least you belonged to yourself when you were lonely.” - Mistress Pat

“One can't get over the habit of being a little girl all at once.” - Anne of Avonlea

“If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you'll never be and you need not waste time in trying.”  - The Blue Castle

“I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "You get hold of their soul then.” - Anne's House of Dreams

“Don't be led away by those howls about realism. Remember-pine woods are just as real as pigsties and a darn sight pleasanter to be in.” Emily of the New Moon

“It is never quite safe to think we have done with life. When we imagine we have finished our story fate has a trick of turning the page and showing us yet another chapter.” Rainbow Valley

Beau Geste- The book I love and HATE

Never has a book infuriated me as much as this book.

Even now just thinking about it I can feel every hair on my head standing up in fury! The character I particularly despise can be glad that they will never come into personal contact with me with because I would have much to say to them and that of a very fruity nature. 

I would generally say that I am an understanding and patient person, but here understanding and patience ends!

The novel beings by describing two very different mysteries. The first is set in the wilds of the northern Africa at a military fort and the second, set in the English countryside; involves a close knit, proper and well to do English family.

Let me describe the mysteries for you.

 Mystery 1.

The Commandant of a division of the French Foreign Legions in the wilds of northern Africa receives a message that the nearby fort, Zinderneuf, is under siege by the marauding people of the land. The fort is desperately under-maned and the Commandant sets off at once with his division to try and rescue the besieged legionnaires before they are all massacred. They arrive but from the outside everything seems to be calm and quiet. There is no presence of marauding bandits and no burning fort. The Commandant breaths a sigh of relief until he notices many strange things. There is no sentry on the lookout. The soldier standing at the battlements refuse to acknowledge him and there is no answering bugle call from inside the fort. On closer inspections it is found out that every soldier on duty at the battlements is in fact dead, propped up in position to appear alive. The silence of the fort and the presence of the it's dead protectors scare the Commandant and his men. The bugler volunteers to investigate inside and he is boosted inside. Finally the Commandant also enters the fort after the bugler fails to report back. He finds that everyone in the fort is dead but it is clear the bandits were not able to force an entry. Every man is propped up on the wall except for one man who lies on the parapet with a bayonet in his chest. The Commandant is spooked and confused.
Where are the bandits?
How do dead men prop themselves against the walls?
How did a fort of dead men hold off an encroaching force?
Why is the Commander of the fort the only one dead from a bayonet wound?
Who killed the Commander? and
Where is the bugler who entered but has now disappeared?

Mystery 2.
Brothers Michael (Beau), Digby and John Geste have spent most of their childhood with their Aunt Patricia. She is a kind, childless lady married to a mean, rich man called Hector. While Aunt Patricia would like to help the poor of the region, miserly Uncle Hector holds his finances close to his chest. It is rumoured Patricia only married Hector for the gem he gave her as a wedding present. It is a huge sapphire worth at least thirty thousand pounds called the 'Blue Water'.

The brother's childhood playmates were; beautiful Claudia niece of Aunt Patrica, Isabel, Claudia's companion, and Augustus, Uncle Hector's stuck up and misunderstood nephew. Beau Geste is Aunt Patricia's favorite child and she loves his gentle commanding and moral nature.

One evening when the children are grown up they are all gathered together excepting Uncle Hector. It is requested that the sapphire be brought out to look at and they are all take turns looking and holding it. Suddenly the lights go out and when the darkness lifts the sapphire has gone. Very quickly the mood of the evening turns sour as no one admits to taking the gem and everyone falls under suspicion. Aunt Patricia is at first shocked, and then disappointed and then angry. She threatens to call the police and demands that no one leaves the house until the soulless, black- hearted thief faces the consequences.

John, the youngest Geste brother and narrator of the book is horrified when he wakes up to find that his oldest brother has flown the house. Beau leaves a note for his brothers stating that while he did not take the gem he has deliberately incriminated himself to shift the blame from the others. It is not long before Digby also secretly leaves and in his note to John he reiterates Beau's words swearing he did not steal the gem but he wants to protect the girls from unpleasantness. John is convinced of his two brother's honour and love for Aunt Patricia. However, he has had a niggling doubt about Beau since he found him with his hand close to where the sapphire was last seen. Pushing these thoughts to the back of his mind however, John soon gets into the action and he too uncreatively flees the house hoping to confuse any facts that may put the guilt onto Beau.
Who took the sapphire?
Why take the sapphire?
How can everyone seem so innocent? and
Are Beau and Digby as honourable as they seem?
.......

These two seemingly removed stories slowly move closer together.

Beau, Digby and John reunite as they enlist in the French Foreign Legion in a bid to evade the law that is catching up on them. They have a rosy idea of rolling sand dunes, feisty camels and rollicking adventures against marauding bandits. Ha! They instead endure long marches, blistering heat, minimal food, bloody battles and cruel men who they are fighting against and are also in the Legion. However these brothers are stout fellows and true Brits and they knuckle down to it waving an honourable fist in the rabble's noses while crying 'dignity, always dignity!' They make some true friends and some lasting enemies, especially when rumours abound that one of them is carrying a huge sapphire and every man and his camel wishes they could get their hands on it.

The conclusion approaches as we find that the brothers have been separated. Digby is now a bugler in one company while Beau and John are legionnaires in the company situated at the soon to be ill fated fort of Zinderneuf. The Commander of Zinderneuf, Lejaune, is an evil man reckless of the lives of his men but a brilliant battle strategist. It is not long before his men plan to mutineer against him but Beau and John refuse to join such dishonourable plans. Lejaune also has plans to murder the two brothers and take the gem they are suspected of carrying. Beau and John find themselves trapped between serving their Commandant honourably, while avoiding being killed by him. As the tension between the three parties builds to a climax suddenly the fort comes under attack and everyone must fight together against an enemy that out-numbers them a hundred to one. The security of the fort gives the legionnaires something to work with against the maruaders but it is not enough and Lejaune hatches the plan to prop up dead man at the battlements to confuse the enemy and make their number seem far greater then they really are. The plan works but the battle is still fierce and there are more and more dead men standing at their posts.

In a terrible moment John turns to find Beau fallen. John is thrown into despair and he feels that he is incapable of living when Beau is dead. A new wave of pain washes over John as the marauders retreat to wait for a more opportune time to attack. If only Beau had survived a few more minutes!
John and Lejaune are the only two surviving soldiers of the fort. John is horrified when shortly after the battle concludes he finds Lejaune searching Beau's body for the gem. Lejaune turns his gun on John and declares he will kill John and take the gem for himself when Beau who is in fact only just alive trips Lejaune so he misses John and John kills Lejaunne with his bayonet. John is horrified at his actions and overwrought because of the dying Beau. Beau asks him to carry a letter back to Aunt Patricia and he manages to call John a 'stout fella' before he dies.

When the rescuing legionnaires arrive at Zinderneuf it is Digby as bugler who enters first. He finds Beau's dead body and reunites with John outside the fort on the opposite side to the regiment. The brothers attempt to comfort each other and head off with two friends from Digby's regiment to civilization alone. There is nothing to stay for now that Beau has died. There is more tragedy however and Digby dies along the way in a couragous attempt to save the life of his brother and his two friends. John, at last, crawls into the city a shadow of his former self.
......

Finally, almost dead and with more sorrows then he can count John returns to see Aunt Patricia with the mysterious letter from Beau. A somewhat somber Aunt Patricia reads it to John. It turns out that Aunt Patricia had in fact sold the real 'Blue Water' long before the incident of the theft. Beau overhead the conversation in which she sold it intending to use the money to help the deserving poor. So to protect her from Hector if he should ever find out, Beau staged the robbery. He even went so far in trying to protect her by carrying the damning evidence with him to sand blasted Africa.

What!? Aunt Patricia knew all along that the stolen Blue water was a fake?
Yes she did. And yet she still threatened, ridiculed, bulled and browbeat her confused and loyal friends, turning them against each other. She refused to share the truth with those who loved her most forcing Beau to make a noble but futile gesture that he paid for with his life and the life of his brother.

Aunt Patricia, you KILLED Beau and Digby, you NINCOMPOOP!!!!! You may not have physically stabbed them or shot them but your proud, self-centered and cowardly actions killed them!! Don't just gently mop your eyes. They will never mop their eyes again because you made a ridiculous decision and then continued on with it and continued on with and continued on with. You had so many chances to fix what you did. Oh, you most frustrating fictional character!!

I am ripping out my hair at the roots in frustration.

I am afraid if I had been John in this book and had come back and heard Beau's letter and seen his Aunt's reaction I would have looked at her, walked out the door and never walked in it again. I hope I might have been able to forgive but I would never be able to go back and act as before. I would never be able to see it from her point of view. Her point of view was DUMB.

Ok. I've almost calmed down now.

The negatives of the book:

1.  Beau and Digby dying
2. The general soul destroying bleakness of life lost in the African wilderness
3. The villains of the French Foreign Legion are really very stereotypical villains without much depth

The Positives of the book:

1. Very well written
2. A good deal of subtle and dry humour
3. Suspenseful
4. Written about a period in history not generally well known now a days

Should you read this book? Well I have probably ruined it for you now since I have explained the ending. However, if you want to read a heroic adventure book written in an old fashioned style that you will enjoy thoroughly until you have a mental break down in the last chapter due to a sensation of all encompassing rage, I give you my blessing.