Wheels of War

Sally Prue is an author who respects and enjoys language. Not for her the repetitive phrasing, automatic couplings and half-dead metaphors left over from previous ages. So when she also fixes on an arresting plot, readers can expect to be in for something really good, and in this novel they will not be disappointed. Its tale of Will Nunn, a boy servant caught up in the fatal ambiguities and bitter cruelties of warfare, is constantly gripping and at times almost unbearably tense. Set in the early nineteenth century, it describes an imaginary Britain where something like civil war has broken out after the end of the Napoleonic wars. Romantically in love with the whole idea of soldiery and fighting, Will sees his illusions shatter as his former hero turns into an armed thug while around him thoughtless destruction becomes a way of life. The pacifist message contained throughout may be pushing at an already open door, given that glamour and glory must currently be the last words coming to mind when British children contemplate the realities of current warfare on their television screens. But perhaps most anti-war novels only get published after the need for them has more or less gone and the swaggering warlords have long departed. Will lives to see at least some of his dreams realised as he comes of age, finding new strength plus an erotic charge for his pretty fellow-servant Rosie that takes them both by surprise. Readers will surely want to wish both of them a long and happy life, free of any more of the violence that had so nearly destroyed them.