" The
result was a series of victories--Mametz, Contalmaison, Pozieres,
Guillemont, Thiepval, Beaumont-Hamel--and the writer is able to
associate with each immortal name the regiments there engaged, all
heroes, for "there were no stragglers." Indeed, if there is a weakness
in the book it is that the insistent recording of the individual
heroism of different battalions tends to become monotonous. But what
a fault! It is a monotony of British valour crowned by a monotony of
British triumph.
* * * * *
A point that will hardly avoid your notice in the plot of _In the
Night_ (LONGMANS), by Mr. R. GORELL BARNES (now Lord GORELL), is the
exiguous part played in its elucidation by the Great Investigator, who
(as usual) happens to be on the spot and able to place his services
at the disposal of the local authorities. It is, I suppose due to the
Sherlockian tradition these unhappy persons, the local detectives,
must always be supplemented by a superior and high-handed expert. I
think, from his preface, that the author does not quite share my own
taste in such matters, since he promises that his Investigator shall
keep no secrets and observe nothing withheld from the eye of the
reader.
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