'Bête Noire' is set in Piccadilly during the long winter between the Battle of Alamein and the Normandy invasion. At the time, the 24-year-old Douglas had pretty much recovered from wounds inflicted by German 88s in the Western Desert and by spring he was back in action. On 9 June, three days after landing in France, he was killed behind enemy lines. We can trace the beast to a passage in From Alamein to Zem Zem, in which he describes his escape from a blasted tank over a minefield of wrecked armour and oil-stained corpses:

LRB 6 June 1996 | PDF Download