We Always Come Back
$2.50
By PEYTON PAUL
SEX and flak are combined in equal proportions to make We Always Come Back a sordid tale of American misadventures in the air and on the ground. First published in London last summer, the book is a Hemingwayesque recital of a gallant Liberator’s last raid over Germany and of the lowly pleasures previously enjoyed by its crew in England. The narrative is sparked by terse, racy dialogue, piles up dangers and deaths in nerve-jangling sequence, and contains some of the most graphic descriptions ever written of a doomed bomber being coaxed home on two engines and no elevator cables.
The author, a young American navigator who was based in England from 1942 to 1945, tells his story in the first person, speaking as the navigator of the doomed plane. Utilizing the flash-back technique to intersperse current action with a dismal series of old memories, Mr. Allen reduces his experiences overseas to a pointless account of crap games, drunken parties in officers’ clubs, easy pickups among Britain’s love-starved female population, and all the crudities pertaining to wartime living.
Amid flak bursts and fighter attacks, the navigator thinks of Phyllis, who lured him to a hotel room in Geoffrey Square; of gentle Gwenn. who hated to sleep alone during her husband’s absence; of Audrey, who believed that the beds in deserted air-raid shelters should be utilized regularly; of Barbara, who provided her lovers with brcakfast in bed; and occasionally he even thinks of Chris, his former sweetheart and now only his wife in far-off America. Although it is obvious that the plane will soon crash into the English Channel, the navigator also takes time out to regale himself with anecdotes pertaining to the love life of his fellow crewmen.
We Always Come Back is a first novel in a double sense. Not only is it Mr. Allen’s first fictional endeavor: it is also the first book put out by two veterans who decided in England to make publishing their post-war business. With so much of importance to write about, one can only wonder why Mr. Allen confined himself to the lowest levels of Anglo-American relationships. If his wholesale debasement of American servicemen and Englishwomen serves any purpose, that purpose is nowhere apparent in his book.
He draws no conclusions, makes no significant remarks, and seems to be unaware of anything except the sensual side of war. Among his more naïve American readers, the book may serve as a revelation of why many Americans wore out their welcome in England. To his English readers, faced with the accusation that in all cases of infidelity the British girl was the aggressor, the title alone must seem to be more of a threat than a promise.
EDGAR L. JONES