AND YET AGAIN .sx OTHER RANKS .sx By W. V. TILSLEY .sx With an introduction by EDMUND BLUNDEN .sx ( Cobden-Sanderson .sx 7s .sx 6d .sx net .sx ) UP TO MAMETZ .sx By LL .sx WYN GRIFFITH .sx ( Faber and Faber .sx 7s .sx 6d .sx net .sx ) THE WAR LETTERS OF A LIGHT INFANTRYMAN .sx By CAPTAIN J. E. H. NEVILLE , M.C. ( Sifton Praed .sx 8s .sx 6d .sx net .sx ) THE CROSS BEARERS .sx A Novel .sx By A. M. FREY .sx ( Putnam .sx 7s .sx 6d .sx net .sx ) SOLDIERS - AND WOMEN .sx By OTTO BERNHARD WENDLER .sx Translated by IAN F. D. MORROW .sx ( Allen and Unwin .sx 7s .sx 6d .sx net ) .sx FOUR YEARS OUT OF LIFE .sx By LESLEY SMITH .sx ( Philip Allan .sx 12s .sx 6d .sx net .sx ) Publishers tell us-that War-books are " done for , " but continue to bring them out .sx Presumably they pay their way , but it is hardly probable that their sales are as great as a year ago .sx This is unlucky for the authors , for in many cases the books are superior to their predecessors which had very great success .sx Of the six before us , the four by British hands all have merit , three of them considerable literary merit , while the fourth has something better still , the unconscious revelation in letters of a charming and soldierly character .sx Nor must we forget to mention that Miss - or Mrs. , for she describes herself by a different surname in the book - Smith is a very clever artist , who has enriched her narrative with sketches which greatly increase its significance and reality .sx Mr. Blunden remarks that Mr. Tilsley " misses nothing .sx " He has , indeed , a very keen eye .sx Like most " other ranks " who have written of their experiences in the War , he had had an upbringing and an education superior to that of his fellows .sx He was one of those who believed that the Army could not make soldiers of his kind , and admits that when he saw a German raiding-party approaching he forgot in his excitement to take off his safety-catch .sx Perhaps for this reason he displays at times a pessimism regarding the respective qualities of British and German troops which is at war with his pride in the 55th Division .sx It is curious to note that so many authors of War-books assume a raid carried out by their own side to be mere senseless butchery and that very few indeed of them describe a successful one .sx If , on the other hand , " Jerry " comes over , it is assumed that the odds are heavily in favour of his carrying off a sentry-post .sx Mr. Tilsley's description of an attack on the Somme is as vivid as anything of the sort that has been written .sx Captain Wyn Griffith , author of " Up to Mametz , " was probably not much older than Mr. Tilsley and no fonder of war ; but he was more of a natural soldier , as his adventures with the cookery class and the home-made baths , and his instant apprehension that a stray artillery officer up in front during the attack on Mametz Wood must mean a telephone line to the rear , all testify .sx His division was the 38th ( Welsh ) , and his earliest experiences of the line were gained in front of Aubers Ridge , where he was attached to a battalion of the Coldstream Guards for instruction .sx His description of this period is very good , and he hits off very cleverly the contrast between the " benevolently neutral " Coldstreamers , anxious to know why their guests had cut their hair with the horse-clippers , and the open-mouthed novices sitting at their feet .sx His account of the fighting at Mametz Wood has a quality somewhat rare in books of personal reminiscences - at least those of junior officers and men - for it helps us to understand exactly what happened .sx That is , however , probably because he was not then with his regiment , but attached to the staff , which gave him a wider outlook .sx He is bitterly critical of the methods of attack , but possibly does not realize to the full the influence of personalities upon the division's fortunes .sx We had lost the layman's power of judging between the rival theories of experts , without capturing the acquiescent confidence of a soldier .sx All the counsel we could give amounted to little more than a cry of " Not thus .sx .. not thus .sx " .sx Captain Neville , again , was a very young man during the War , for when it broke out he was looking forward to his last two years at Eton .sx When he was eighteen , a year later , he went to Sandhurst , and in December , 1916 , found himself at No .sx 55 Infantry Base Dept , Rouen .sx His book consists of a collection of letters dealing not only with his experiences in France , but also with those in North Russia , where be was a member of the force based on Archangel between May and September , 1919 .sx The letters are addressed to his father and his two sisters and have no pretensions to literary form , " Yours till Hell freezes " being one of his methods of closing them .sx Yet they are full of an essential decency and quiet pluck which are very welcome after the tone of numerous more pretentious compilations ; and when it comes to the description of a battle , of trench routine , or even of a countryside their writer needs no tutelage from more practised hands .sx Indeed , sometimes his comments have all the more force because of their restraint .sx March 3rd .sx A lovely spring day .sx Our guns came up .sx More burying .sx The dead were a detestable sight .sx Thank God , their dear ones can't see them like this .sx That , surely , is as forcible as the most gruesome detail .sx His first experiences of the line were exceptionally trying , as he joined the 52nd ( Oxford and Bucks ) Light Infantry when it was in the confusion left over from the Somme fighting , lost his way the first night up , walked into a German post , and was exceedingly lucky to escape death or capture .sx The cold in February - who can forget that .sx February !sx - was so great that the beer and Perrier came in frozen at meals and the condensed milk was a solid block .sx Then came the German retirement , with the regiment in pursuit .sx Up north of Arras in April he saw a sight which not so many out of all the millions saw - three waves of Germans advancing against the British front line at Gavrelle , the British barrage coming down like a tornado , and " men , like ants , running away to the rear .sx " He had " offensive spirit " enough to please any brigadier , as his sniping activities and his unconcealed pleasure in telling his sisters of what success he had in them prove to us .sx Yet he had his pessimistic moments when he asked whether there was any encouraging news from home , " because I am blowed if I can see anything bright on the horizon .sx " His attitude to the war between Cambrai ( where his spirits rose and he almost thought he saw a speedy ending ) and the German offensive of March , 1918 , may be summed up in the phrase :sx " It does not seem that we can gain much by going on , but we shall lose everything if we stop now .sx " Unabashedly fond of his dinner and the good things in parcels , but urging his family to send out no more because of the shortage at home ; delighting in Paris leave , but tramping to divine service when it was not " a " ; generally keeping away from the deeper sentiments of the heart , and , if he does mention them , clothing them in the language of a schoolboy ; coming as near to passion as he ever dares to when looking back at Norfolk scenes and Barton Broad " with the glittering white " ; he leaves us with the impression that the father and sisters who got these letters were fortunate .sx Besides the books we have discussed , and especially the third , the two translations from the German appear forced and hysterical .sx " The Cross Bearers " is a good deal the better written and more interesting of the two , but is unreal .sx Imagine , in one division , a medical officer who takes cigarettes by the handful from his orderly and never repays them , and who is attending to the culture of his mushrooms in a cellar when the wounded are awaiting his services ; a regimental commander who takes second favours from a girl after an orderly , while the latter has to stand sentry outside the window , and who dances in a state of drunkenness to the strains of the regimental band in the village street ; and another regimental commander who establishes his headquarters beside the dressing station under the shelter of the Red Cross !sx The book has the usual introduction by one of the brothers Mann - Herr Heinrich this time - who informs us that it makes the War " more nude , more obscene , more idiotic " than any of its predecessors .sx " Soldiers - and Women " opens with a picture of six soldiers , some of them mere youths , drinking dry nine bottles of spirits and remaining more or less sober , which is sheer impossibility .sx It also pictures a company commander who steals the chocolate from the parcels addressed to men who have become casualties .sx Its theme , so far as it has one , is the sexual irregularity of women whose husbands and lovers are at the wars , and its chief figure the young wife of a soldier , who returns and murders her on learning that she has in his absence become the mistress of the village postman .sx The characters of this book are lifeless , whereas those of " The Cross Bearers " are pretty well drawn .sx " Four Years out of Life " is the record of a young girl , after a little experience in a civilian hospital at home , going out to work in a base hospital on the coast .sx There is a good deal about the operating wards , but in the main the writer concentrates upon a much more interesting and fruitful subject , the life of the unit , the temperaments and sentiments of the young women who compose it , and their reactions to war .sx The lighter side is not forgotten .sx It is chiefly composed of flirtations between nurses and medical officers and the strenuous efforts of dour matrons to checkmate them .sx The writer is cool and detached , even when the medical officer on duty is somewhat affected by " guest-night " and murmurs , stroking her hand :sx " Poo lil gal , poo lil gal , give them all 4 grs .sx morphia and have a peashful night , " or when another , taking her out to dinner in Le Treport , kisses her because " there are so few women and if you knew what it meant - " .sx It was the perpetual old excuse and anyhow it was not very complimentary .sx I cut him short by saying :sx - " Not at all , Captain Main , please don't apologize .sx I must say I dislike being kissed as a routine , it bores me , but I quite see that I am bilking my share of the entertainment and I must insist on paying for my own dinner .sx " I spoke haughtily , but as I spoke I suddenly realized I had only a few francs in my pocket .sx One talks of war's monotony , but it is not easy to think of many tasks carried out by males in time of war which were more monotonous , and in a peculiarly dreadful fashion , than those of these women .sx IRISH VISIONS .sx IRISH VISIONS OF THE OTHER WORLD .sx By ST. JOHN D. SEYMOUR .sx ( S.P.C.K. 6s .sx net .sx ) Although Archdeacon Seymour undertook this study of visions found in Irish ecclesiastical literature down to the closing years of the twelfth century as a special study of the subject as a whole , the field of research which he has selected is probably the most important and , from the points of view of scholarship and literature , the most fertile which he could have treated as a single field .sx He has , indeed , already covered a great part of the ground himself in yet more specialized articles contributed by him to the Journal of Theological Studies , the Zeitschrift fr Celtische Philologie and the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy .sx His principal object in studying these visions ( in some instances using cognate documents ) has been that of tracing the eschatological development that runs through them .sx He shows that in the earlier period the Celtic Church in Ireland drew no line of distinction between Hell and Purgatory , but attributed to the former state the qualities possessed by the latter .sx