The amazing sequence of the events with which
it deals gives to the book the thrill of arranged drama, in which
disaster is balanced by the triumphant ending. However unskilfully
told, such a history could hardly fail of its effect; by good fortune,
however, it finds in "QUEX" a chronicler able to do it justice. Simply
and without apparent effort he conveys the suspense of the days before
the attack (a couple of chapters here are as breathlessly exciting as
anything that I have yet read in the literature of the War), the
long trial of the retreat, and finally the retaliation and the
ever-quickening rush forward from victory to victory that makes last
autumn seem like an age of miracles. It is essentially a soldier's
story, at times technical, throughout filled with the unflurried
all-in-the-day's-work philosophy that upheld our armies in every
change of fortune. For many reasons a volume that should find its
place in any collection of the smaller histories of the Great War.
* * * * *
Until I had very nearly reached the end of _The Cormorant_ (MELROSE)
I could not, though I tried, make up my mind as to which of three
possible claimants was filling the title-role.
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