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A CAPTAIN DEPARTED by A. W. Smith Kirkus Star

A CAPTAIN DEPARTED

By

Publisher: Yale Press

A fine and a true book, the story of a youth who joined up in 1914, became an officer in the British Army, served briefly on the Western Front, was invalided home, taught, went back into active service in South Russia, where England ""put on an act"" in support of a lost cause, with the White Russians, returned to England with a yen to serve with his regiment in India, and there found his bubble had burst, and the illusion of the glories of military service was dissipated once and for all. Brief, pungent, witty, a searching indictment in few words of the military tinsel and pretenses, and of the shallowness of post life with the regulars in India. A man's book, primarily, and not confined to those interested in British army life, but rather for those who are sensitive to an interpretative autobiography of a civilized being. A more mature book than Heaven High, Hell Deep -- but many who liked that will like this.