This is the third v0lume of David F’s series. The first is Tuesday’s War (which I haven’t read) and the second, Charlies War, which is reviewed on this site.
The close of Charlie’s War sees Charlie moving from the nastiness of the closing days of WW ll to chasing his erstwhile girlfriend across Europe into Italy, where she tells him (again) to sod off. During his travels he has acquired Grace’s baby and an orphaned German lad who attached himself to him in the ruins of some German city.
The Forgotten War opens with Charlie’s return to England (some two years after the official end of the war), with the intention of more or less resuming his former life. Problem is, he is listed as dead and no-one believes he is who he says he is. Given a casual thumping and no trial to speak of, he is carted off to a prison near Inverness and left to languish.
Rescued (sort of) he is set to work for a shadowy and sinister organization, maybe, probably, maybe not, connected to the government and is told virtually nothing about the purpose of his employment. But he is sent off on clandestine missions flying over the borders of the New Enemy – communist Russia. This, as he puts it, is rather like putting your hand into a rattlesnake’s cage and waving about, hoping the strikes will miss you. (The rattlesnake does make another appearance.)
And as if there wasn’t enough spice in his life, he is coerced into infiltrating an English communist group of squatters, one of whom is his dearly beloved Grace. Charlie walks knife edges, but he has some sharp edges himself.
Another fantastic book. David F captures wonderfully the times and atmosphere of post-war Britain. The war may have been won, but at a terrible cost. Buildings bombed to rubble, able bodied men killed or damaged, homelessness, struggling to rebuild and re-start. A new enemy is just over the horizon and a new set of paranoias.
There is a wonderful, irreverent whimsical humour on virtually every page, set against Charlie’s feisty, indomitable character. But it is a humour touched with sadness and loss and the ghosts who stand looking on. There is some great accounts of the aeroplanes of the day too which should suit the aircraft anoraks.
Hmm! I didn’t count the number of times that Charlie gets laid in this volume, but if it was an Olympic event, he’d definitely be a contender.
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