FIRST COMES COURAGE

by Robert Edmond Alter ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 8, 1969

Wolves in the Klondike, sharks along the Australian coast, a great buffalo charging in Africa--ten tales of physical endurance, based on actual incidents, bathed in blood and thunder. One or two men are singled out in the martial episodes--Home and Salkeld in 1857 India, Bertholf among the ""savages"" in the Philippines (1901), Spanish Legionnaires Desmond and Lockesley in Morocco (ca. 1920)--with the bombs bursting in air. Slightly more dramatic are some of the less brutal (but equally courageous) scenes: Boettner on an early parachute tryout; the explosion of Tom Eadie's diving suit; Saint-Exupery's colleague Gauillaumet finding his way out of the freezing cold Argentine mountains. None of the incidents is especially well told--there's an assault of cliches--so even the inherent tension tends to be lost.

Pub Date: July 8, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1969

Categories: NONFICTION