Too Few For Drums

                                   Shall they return to beatings of great bells
                                   In wild trainloads?
                                   A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
                                   May creep back, silent, to still village wells
                                   Up half-known roads.

                                          - Wilfred Owen

I have been asked about a book which I was reading: R. F. Delderfield's "Too Few For Drums"

Well, it was OK if you like that sort of thing. I finished it, which I couldn't manage when I tried the first of the Sharpe books. Delderfield apparently published non-fiction books on the Napoleonic Wars - although I don't believe I've ever seen any - and he certainly creates a believable milieu. The story is fairly formulaic as a small group of British infantrymen are cut off during the retreat to the lines of Torres Vedras and have to make their way back through enemy lines encountering all sorts of adventures and mishaps. The characters are stereotypical: callow officer, stolid countryman, shifty Cockney, fey (and also rather worldly) Welsh camp-follower etc.  Delderfield is mainly known as the author of the sort of family sagas they used to show on the BBC on Sunday evenings; A Horseman Riding By is the one that comes to mind. He did write another Napoleonic novel "Seven Men of Gascony", which is apparently told from a French perspective.

Fun fact, Delderfield also wrote the play on which the first of the Carry On films, "Carry On Sergeant", was based.