I so very much wanted to like this, by the author of Beau Geste. It concerns the East African campaign in WWI, a topic of particular fascination. Yet.. nothing happens. Then nothing more happens. People joke around. There is racist good-old-boyism. Nothing more happens. I was disappointed, learned nothing, didn't have fun, and gained little from the experience. Maybe that is the point? I could find no critical commentary such as reviews, it never got much attention. There are some reviews on LibraryThing and Goodreads, but they are mixed. If you are not liking it early on it probably won't get much better, but some people like it, free anyway. ( )

With this book Wren leaves his more familiar subject of the French Foreign Legion and gives us a splendid tale of the First World War as fought in Africa. Bertram Walsingham Greene is a clever and studious young man who is however a sad disappointment to his father,Major Walsingham Greene. His son,who however worships the Major,resolves to go to war and enlists as a Second-Lieutenant in the Indian Army Reserve. He does his training (such as it is) in India but is soon sent to Africa to take part in the bloody fighting there.
He changes from a wet-behind-the-ears,but throughly nice man into a battle-hardened fighter and learns a lot about himself as he goes along.
The early stages of the story are rather funny and have much to remind the reader of P.G.Wodehouse,but as Bertram battles his way through the jungle and swamp of Africa,leading his men,things become much more serious in tone. The descriptions of the fighting between the mostly native troops under British command and the askaris who under their German leaders,oppose them are wonderfully done. The descriptions of atrocities committed by these soldiers are truly sickening. The only thing that failed to ring true was the love interest at the end of the book. ( )