James Leasor

NTR: Nothing to Report (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

"Superbly authentic atmosphere, taut narration" - The Observer

"Mr. Leasor brings to 'Nothing to Report' a journalist's straightforwardness, and an on-the-spot sureness about how frightened men behave, that are both refreshing and effective." - Spectator

In the early spring of 1944, when the British fortunes of war in the East were low, the Japanese invaded India. From General Headquarters, the word went out that the invasion must be stayed whatever the cost and thus it was that the men of draft RAKXK were sent to one of the unknown, unheard of places in India to defend one of the smaller sectors of the front. NTR is their story and tells of their battles, their loves, their deaths. For they travelled halfway round the world, they endured dangers by land, sea and air, and then, in the end, what was the message they sent back? NTR - Nothing to Report. The reason behind this, illustrating all the irony of war and its consequences, is related in James Leasor's semi-autobiographical, moving and realistic novel.

"...Before a battle, everyone comports himself in a different way, and one that is curiously symbolic of the man himself. There are those who lay out their kit neatly by the side of their bed roll, and then calmly, so it seems, unroll their mosquito nets and lie down, ready and willing for sleep, no more concerned, at least to the looker-on, than if they were off on a week's holiday next day. There are others who lie, nets up, surrounded by busy mosquitoes, talking with friends in low tones, trying to peer through the dimness of the night and see the future and the day beyond. Still others smoke nervously and constantly, jamming their cigarettes through the hole in the concealing tobacco tin, lonely, yet drawn in on themselves like snails with their feelers beneath their shells.
All waiting. All passing the time in the only way they know that would make it seem to go quickly. But for all of them, the time drags slowly, and there is no way of making it hurry. Some lucky ones actually fall asleep unexpectedly, and lie on their backs, fully dressed, snoring. But even for them, two o'clock eventually comes; for some too soon, and for others far too late..."

"...When the dust had cleared there was no-one left among them to grumble at all, not even Mr Brown. Ten men accounted for in an instant by one shell that had been made months before in a munition sweat shop outside Yoshida City by bare-foot, hungry workers; that had been carried a thousand miles in a ship with some hundreds of British civilians who were being transferred to Changi Jail from Hongkong, and then up through Malaya to Bangkok and Rangoon; and then brought lashed on the backs of mules, six shells a side, to Nyaunglebyin, where a gun crew of unknown Japanese lubricated it with urine and slapped it in the breach...."

"...Men who had come from opposite sides of the world to meet so fiercely thus in a place none had heard of a month before. Men who did not hate each other because they did not know each other, but who were intent on killing quickly if they could, for otherwise they might be killed themselves..."

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: James Leasor
• Erscheinungstermin: 21. Januar 2012
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781908291455
• Artikelnr.: 72370111

Autorenporträt

James Leasor was one of the bestselling British authors of the second half of the 20th Century. He wrote over 50 books including a rich variety of thrillers, historical novels and biographies.

His works included Passport to Oblivion (which sold over 4 million copies around the World and was filmed as Where the Spies Are, starring David Niven), the first of nine novels featuring Dr Jason Love, a Somerset GP called to aid Her Majesty's Secret Service in foreign countries, and another series about the Far Eastern merchant Doctor Robert Gunn in the 19th century. There were also sagas set in Africa and Asia, written under the pseudonym Andrew MacAllan, and tales narrated by an unnamed vintage car dealer in Belgravia.

Among non-fiction works were lives of Lord Nuffield, the Morris motor manufacturer, Wheels to Fortune and RSM Brittain, who was said to have the loudest voice in the Army, The Sergeant-Major; The Red Fort, which retold the story of the Indian Mutiny; and Rhodes and Barnato, which brought out the different characters of the great South African diamond millionaires. Who Killed Sir Harry Oakes? was an investigation of the unsolved murder of a Canadian mining entrepreneur in the Bahamas,

He wrote a number of books about different events in the Second World War, including Green Beach, which revealed an important new aspect of the Dieppe Raid, when a radar expert landed with a patrol of the South Saskatchewan regiment, which was instructed to protect him, but also to kill him if he was in danger of falling into enemy hands; The One that Got Away (later filmed with Hardy Kruger in the starring role) about fighter pilot, Franz von Werra, the only German prisoner of war to successfully escape from British territory; Singapore the Battle that Changed the World, on the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1941; Boarding Party (later filmed as The Sea Wolves with Gregory Peck, David Niven and Roger Moore) concerned veterans of the Calcutta Light Horse who attacked a German spy ship in neutral Goa in 1943; The Unknown Warrior, the story about a member of a clandestine British commando force consisting largely of Jewish exiles from Germany and eastern Europe, who decieived Hitler into thinking that the D-Day invasion was a diversion for the main assault near Calais; and The Uninvited Envoy, which told the story of Rudolph Hess' solo mission to Britain in 1941.

Thomas James Leasor was born at Erith, Kent, on Decembe...