MORE LIVES THAN ONE

Stout stuff, this, in an incredible autobiography of a wealthy Australian, whose boyhood was warped by the neurotic woman hired to care for him by his guardians. Further isolation came when he missed death by a hairsbreadth, and was left paralysed, dumb, blind and deaf for days. Through his slow recovery, he found that he had gained increased powers that set him even more apart. But the first world war gave him a chance for a normal life, as he joined up with the Aazas. Then came tales of endurance, ingenuity, ability to exist under all conditions -- facts that made Australian performance at Gallipoll and in France legendary today. Worse than the enemy (Turks whom they respected, Germans they encountered in France) was the incompetence of their own officers, who knew little of war and less of Australians; the pests and diseases, the lack of equipment and reenforcements, the orders that demanded the impossible. The author because of his unique hearing and sight soon was assigned to Intelligence, in Egypt, in the trenches, in Paris -- and buoyantly recounts his experiences as a spy. As a , his ""Mob"" circumvented red tape, lived longer than most and gained in love for his fellow men. Interesting sidelight on the ""amateurs' war"" -- as distinguished from this, the ""killers' war"". Men will like this better than women.