Survivor, soldier of fortune, a tough mercenary who would be on hand in any campaign and whose washed-out pale-blue eyes might stare out with equal pugnacity and distaste from under a bowler, a bush hat or a steel helmet - that is the kind of image the old pro projected and presented. A 17th-century poet, writing an epitaph, would have given us a conceit about death being glad to have got him at last. A tender-hearted chap like Siegfried Sassoon might have shaken his head, on the other hand, and regretted that those who were young and hated war should have to die 'when cruel old campaigners win safe through'.

LRB 25 April 1991 | PDF Download