Killing Rommel: A Novel

All genuine epiphanies seem to follow this model: their defining quality is the relinquishment of delusion. The initial fear is that one has lost something. A cherished self-conception must be given up, and one feels diminished by it. This is mistaken, however. A person discovers that he has been made stronger by the jettisoning of this sham and disadvantageous baggage. In fact, he has become more “himself,” by aligning his self-concept more closely with fact.

“Conserve everything, even the air in your lungs.” He shows me how to breathe through the nostrils, never the mouth. “You’ll lose three pints a day, just out of your gizzard.”

Let me say this about courage under fire. In my experience, valour in action counts for far less than simply performing one’s commonplace task without cocking it up.

The role of the officer, in my experience, is nothing grander than to stand sentinel over himself and his men, towards the end of keeping them from forgetting who they are and what their objective is, how to get there, and what equipment they’re supposed to have when they arrive. Oh, and getting back. That’s the tricky part.

The virtues of resourcefulness, self-composure, patience, hardiness, not to mention a sense of humour, were prized as highly as those of bravery, aggressiveness, and raw martial rigour.

I recognise him. He is Paddy Mayne, the legendary Irish rugby wing-forward, who was my idol when I was at school. Mayne is in his late twenties but looks older, six foot three and as powerful as Ajax. I’d be less nervous meeting the King.

His mode of leadership was to place himself physically wherever the action was hottest, heedless of his own safety. “Rommel isn’t reckless,” declared Easonsmith. “He has simply found that in mobile warfare the commander’s presence at the point of action is essential.”

Mayne possesses an odd delicacy of speech; he will swear like a trooper, but without ever employing the ubiquitous term for fornication, which most soldiers use every tenth word, or any obscene term for a woman or a female anatomical part.

The LRDG men are all New Zealanders, as I said, and all, except two privates, Holden and Davies, older than I by at least seven years. In civilian life they are farm appraisers, stockmen, fitters and joiners. They have families and own farms. Oliphant’s family’s is ten thousand acres.

Irish despair knows no remedy. Money doesn’t help. Love fades; fame is fleeting. The only cures are booze and sentiment. That’s why the Irish are such noble drunks and glorious poets. No one sings like the Irish or mourns like them. Because they’re angels imprisoned in vessels of flesh.”