LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3275, 20 December 1916, Page 66

LITERATURE.

COOK NOTICES. •'Men, Women, and Guns." By "Sapper." London, Melbourne, etc. : Hodtler and Stoughton. (Cloth; 3s 6d.) " Sapper's " two previous "soldier books " —" The Lieutenant and Others " and " Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E." — have had a phenomenal success, over 200,000 copies having been already sold. The stories in "Men, Women, and Guns" are longer, and show greater literary ability than their predecessors; but they have * the same sincerity and force, the same agonising pathos or rollicking humour (sometimes both in one story). Like all really good imaginative work, they are more convincing than most of the " eyewitness " reports, with their unemotional exactness, because they enter into the soul of our citizen army, showing not merely its deeds, but its motives ; not merely its acts, but the thoughts which-, gave rise to the acts. Thus in the second story, "Private Meyrick, Company Idiot" we see how the intuition of a good" commanding officer pierces through "the rough shell of a dreamy, inefficient, inarticulate private to the one vulnerable spot under the unprepossessing exterior, when he declares : We're all out for the same thing, my lad, and that's the regiment. We do things not because we're afraid of being punished if we're caught, but because we know they are for the good of the regiment —the" finest regiment in the world. You've got to make good, not because you'll be dropped on if you don't, but because you'll pull the regiment down if you fail. And because you count, you personally. It does not matter what you do. Yon count in the show, and I count in it, and so does the sergeant-major. And thus heartened and instructed, the " Company Idiot " performs a deed worthy of a V.C In the last sketch, "The Land of Topsy-turvy," the writer tells something of the effects of war on those who take part in it, and those who " stand and wait." He shows us some of the effects in the outlook on life of those who never can be the same again, of the clash of warring instincts and hereditary racebeliefs. All values are changed ; all previous ideas undergo revision. It is indeed " The Land of Topsy-turvy." It affects different men in different Avays; but none escape. And that is what those olhers cannot understand—those others who have not been across. Even the man who comes back on short leave hardly grasps how the thing has changed him, hardly realises that the madness is still in his soul. Different men take it in different ways. . . . To some come the meaning of tradition, that strange, nameless something .which has kept regiments in position, battered with shells, stunned with shock, gassed, brain reeling, mind gone, with nothing to hold them except the nameless something which says to them, "Hold on!" that quality that lias sent men laughing and talking without a quaver to their death; that quality which causes men—eaten with fe\-er, lonely, weary to death, thinking themselves forsaken, even of God —to carry on the Empire's Avork in the uttermost corners of the globe, simply because it is their job. We call it " playing the game."

"The Affair, on the Island." By H. B. Marriott Watson. London: Methuen and Co. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) This is a splendid story of adventure, full of life and go. " The Island " is in the middle reaches of the Amazon. A large estate not half cleared, acquired by a big British company for the cultivation of rubber and other tropical products. It is under the control of John Ackroyd, an Englishman, assisted by Mark J!a> ford, an American, and a German overseer. Ackroyd has all the sterner virtues; Haverford is a practical engineer with a passion for invention, who makes an aeroplane, installs a wireless, and lights the whole settlement with electricity. The reader is at once plunged into the story, intrigued by Ackroyd's work and improvements —his model settlement, his benevolent, patriarchal rule in this outpost of civilisation, as well as by Haverford'swonderful inventions. The settlement does not yet pay, and the shareholders are get ting impatient and withholding supplies. The anxiety of the young men is increased by the news of a piratical outbreak at Santa Maria, farther up the river, where a number of desperadoes have made a settlement with the obvious intention of preying on their neighbours. A yacht, the Golden Yanity, manned by a party of American tourists, now comes upon the scene, and the owner declares himself delighted with the prospect of " a scrap." His sister and a girl friend, who form part of the party on the yacht, are equally delighted with the entrancing project of a new excitement. Thus the feminine element is introduced. The yacht is captured by the pirates, and the Americans are held to ransom. They are ultimately rescued by Ackroyd and his men, and their adventures in the great forest are of the most thrilling nature. The pirates finally attack the island in force, and are driven back at the psychological moment by the crew of a battle-cruiser, called by S.O.S. from Haverford's wireless installation. It is a capital story, and quite up to date.

"The Proof of the Pudding." P>y Meredith Nicholson. London, New York, etc.: Hodder and Stoughton. (Cloth, illustrated, 3s 6d.) Billy Copeland, an extravagant, impecunious American of the Upper Ten, has divorced his wife with the intention of making up to and marrying Nan Farley, the adopted daughter and heiress of a very wealthy and eccentric man. Nan was literally picked out of the gutter by her benefactor, and has received every ad\'anta<ie that money can buy. She is the

last word in modernity; "a little develish, but keen and amusing," she is exploited and fooled to the top of her bent by her fashionable acquaintances, who cultivate her for her money and wit, and secretly make game of her as a " gutter snipe." Mrs Copeland, after her divorce, takes up model farming as a resource, and throws herself into it heart and soul until she makes it a great success. She is a woman of thirty-five, full of charm and experience. The two are thrown together. Such a situation would be impossible out of America, where the marriage tie sits lightly and its severance appears to cause no social aAvkwardness. Of course Fanny Copeland knows her husband's intentions towards Nan; but this does not prevent her being kind, sympathetic, almost motherly to the girl who gradually turns with revulsion from her dissipated suitor, gives up her fortune, and fixes her affections on a self-made man, Avho formerly played with her in the gutter, and therefore cannot reproach her loav birth. Copeland is reformed, rescued from drink, induced to take life seriously, and finally reunited to his wife, who has always loved him, by the unselfish, disinterested efforts of Cecil Eaton, a very fine man, Avho is really in love with Fanny Copeland, but sets his oAvn wishes on one side to further her hanpiness, having only one aim in life, that of altruistic devotion not only to his friends, but to ail men—" just helping, just being kind."

" Cupid in Oilskins." By J. J. Bell. London: . Hodder and Stoughton. (Cloth, Is net.) The author of " Wee Macgregor" is so well skilled, both in humour and Pathos, that when he presents " Cupid in Oilskins," the said oilskins clothing the bodies of sundry sailormcn who are all more or less deeply in love with the same charming girl, Ave know exactly what to expect, and enjoy it accordingly. "Sun Sand, and Sin." By Joan Kennedy. London : Hodder and Stoughton. (Cloth, Is net.) This "Soldier Book" takes the reader to South Africa and shows him the "famous march of Botha's boys, one of the oreatcst in the Avorld's history. Undertaken over mine-strewn ways amid poisoned waters, it is rightly called by Botha himself " The Land of Sun, Sand, and Sin."