MOONLIGHT ON A LAKE IN BOND STREET

A run-off -- American style (in particular Edmund and A. J. Liebling)- gives this British of war years a happy transfer and these journalist's records of his military adventures (7) and misadventures will appeal to opposite numbers here. The six years of middled, unheroic service (starting in London and ending there) are ""never less than an entire country behind the front lines"" and they encompass a strange terrain of gaffes, non-combative areas and the lovely trivia that make resounding stories. The best in, perhaps, the mounting of a Monty-double (this has been made into a picture) in which the author's part never got on the screen, nor was he present at the most exciting moments. But yarns of early army life, of a listener assignment, the men he worked with (rank and file which had no employment and very artful dodgers), leave to be part of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs, being bombed in the Cafe de Paris (London again), interludes with Commando soldiers, security and intelligence, and a Paris mission with many irrelevant aspects -- those add up to a recall of the way it was for one man who views it now in tolerant appreciation. A very nice dish of ten.