A Good Clean Fight

Derek Robinson's novel, A Good Clean Fight, follows the remaining characters from his earlier Piece of Cake to the North African Desert in May 1942. As in previous Robinson novels, much of the focus is upon the fictional "Hornet Squadron," now led by "Fanny" Barton and equipped with P-40 "Tomahawks." The pilot "Pip" Patterson, the squadron adjutant "Uncle" Kellaway and the intelligence officer "Skull" Skelton are also on hand. However unlike other Robinson novels that focus mainly on life within the squadron, A Good Clean Fight has substantial roles for the Germans and for a British ground unit. Captain Jack Lampard is a British Special Air Service (SAS) officer who leads daring behind-the-lines raids on German airfields and Major Paul Schramm is a German intelligence officer tasked with finding and defeating the SAS raiders. There are also a number of other SAS and German supporting characters that add depth to Lampard's and Schramm's roles. A Good Clean Fight also has considerably more combat action than any other Robinson novels and the book crackles along at a very good pace. Indeed, the novel starts off very well and could have been a truly great war novel if Robinson had not allowed himself to get distracted with several unnecessary sub-plots in the middle of his work. Nevertheless, A Good Clean Fight is very good and probably one of Robinson's finest efforts to date. The main plot with "Hornet Squadron" in A Good Clean Fight focuses on efforts to entice the Luftwaffe fighters to come up and fight in the quiet period that preceded the Gazala Campaign. Barton, afraid that his hard-luck unit might be broken up, offers to conduct a systematic ground attack program in order to get the German fighters to commit to action (the Germans preferred to hold their fighters back in order to prepare for the main battle coming). In effect, Barton commits his unit to an attritional campaign that can have but one end for the squadron - whittling down pilots and aircraft in the hope that something will "break loose" before the unit is combat ineffective. Barton has changed somewhat since A Piece of Cake and is no longer very sympathetic; many readers might feel that he is sacrificing his unit for his own sake, but that is unfair. "Fanny's" efforts to "outfox" the enemy as he says, and "Skull's" pointed explanations of why this is unlikely are quite interesting. In the midst of this growing tension in the unit, Robinson delivers several excellent and exciting descriptions of air-ground attacks on assorted targets. Lampard begins the novel with an exciting raid on a German airfield and even briefly captures the intelligence officer, Schramm. Robinson's depiction of these raids gives great insight not only into SAS tactics of the period, but the type of men who excelled in this type of work. Lampard in many respects is the SAS leader par excellence - aggressive, physically impressive, cunning and ultra-competent. Unfortunatel

When I read this novel for the first time six years ago, I didn't really get much of the humor or irony, but then I read it last summer, and couldn't put it down. It's a thick book, but it didn't take me long (I usually read very slowly). The characters are entirely believable: not all are likeable, but they're all realistic. By the end, it's actually quite disturbing what happens to them all. Some of these characters are pilots in Hornet Squadron, which also featured in Robinson's book "Piece of Cake". There is a rookie American pilot, the Aussie CO, and the nitpicking intelligence officer, along with a dozen other pilots who are all uniquely entertaining. There is also a team of SAS commandos and their egomaniacal Captain, who make guerilla raids on German airfields, and a German officer who vainly attempts to mount an operation to defend against them. The last - and maybe the funniest - subplot is about an American journalist, who is searching for a Lawrence of Arabia-style hero to sell to American newspapers. The density of imagery regarding the desert itself is astounding. At some points while reading this book I felt like I needed to go swimming, drink a tall glass of cold water, or at least stick my head up for some fresh air. You can feel the heat and blistering sunlight seeping out of the pages. It's the sort of book that you really don't want to end, because in some ways it's a very conclusive ending (death, etc) and in other ways it gives you the feeling that things are just going to continue without change. It was uncomfortable to leave the book knowing that many of its characters were dead, and that those who survived might only be killed a day or a year later. The sense that the war would continue and take more lives was intense. One problem is the Hornet Squadron pilot Fido Doggart. Robinson manages to detail the deaths of everyone else very graphically, but he forgot about Doggart. I don't know if he was killed, or if the author just lost track.

When I read this novel for the first time six years ago, I didn't really get much of the humor or irony, but then I read it last summer, and couldn't put it down. It's a thick book, but it didn't take me long (I usually read very slowly). The characters are entirely believable: not all are likeable, but they're all realistic. By the end, it's actually quite disturbing what happens to them all. Some of these characters are pilots in Hornet Squadron, which also featured in Robinson's book "Piece of Cake": Hooper, a rookie American pilot; Barton, the squadron's Aussie CO, and quite a changed man since we last saw him in the Battle of Britain; and of course, Skull Skelton the nitpicking intelligence officer, who never backs down from a chance to point out exactly why everyone else (including the Air Ministry) is wrong, along with a dozen other pilots who are all uniquely entertaining. Unusual for a Robinson novel, there is an entire cast of characters outside the RAF, and even on the other side. There is a team of SAS commandos and their egomaniacal Captain Lampard, who make guerilla raids on German airfields, and Jakowski, an ill-fated German officer who vainly attempts to mount an operation to defend against them. Perhaps the most touching story is that of Paul Schramm, a Luftwaffe intelligence officer who spends the book trying to get some action, and ends up in a complete mess. The last - and maybe the funniest - subplot is about an American journalist, who is searching for a Lawrence of Arabia-style hero to sell to American newspapers. The density of imagery regarding the desert itself is astounding. At some points while reading this book I felt like I needed to go swimming, drink a tall glass of cold water, or at least stick my head up for some fresh air. You can feel the heat and blistering sunlight seeping out of the pages. It's the sort of book that you really don't want to end, because in some ways it's a very conclusive ending (death, etc) and in other ways it gives you the feeling that things are just going to continue without change. It was uncomfortable to leave the book knowing that many of its characters were dead, and that those who survived might only be killed a day or a year later, and that others had simply vanished into the desert. The sense that the war would continue and take more lives was intense. One problem is the Hornet Squadron pilot Fido Doggart. Robinson manages to detail the deaths of everyone else very graphically, but he forgot about Doggart. I don't know if he was killed, or if the author just lost track.

Although A GOOD CLEAN FIGHT shares some characters in common with an earlier book, PIECE OF CAKE, and it's also about the fictional Hornet squadron, it's not a sequel in the traditional sense. A sequel implies a certain safety, the security of routine: Biggles, Sharpe, Hornblower. With Robinson's books there is no such thing as safety or security. The only thing predictable about this book is that it is just as riveting and blackly funny as any of his other novels. There is a very large cast of characters occupying North Africa in the spring of 1942, in a lull between battles when the two armies, German and British, are eyeing each other across the desert and waiting for something to happen. Fanny Barton, leader of Hornet squadron and survivor of the Battle of Britain, needs to get some results or else he'll be taken off ops, reassigned to ferry brand-new airplanes across Africa. He hatches a plan to strafe German camps and ammo dumps, and whatever other targets he can lay his hands on, even if it means leading his squadron of clapped-out Tomahawks to the brink of destruction. Jack Lampard, a captain in the SAS, has a similar motivation. He's the sort of man only suited to life during wartime; anything less than a life-or-death adventure -- preferably in the desert, with a good chance of having one's head blown off by a German sentry -- is not worth it. He leads commando raids on German airfields, driving his patrol through the desert, behind enemy lines, and striking at night. He gets results, but he also gets addicted to danger: his men can see that Lampard doesn't plan on coming back from their latest raid. An American reporter comes along for the ride, looking for a hero to sell his newspapers. Paul Schramm is a Luftwaffe intelligence officer determined to find some way of combating the SAS raids. He's forty-four, walks with a limp, and knows he's no killer, but he's had a taste of action and he wants more. He struggles with these impulses: "War doesn't use brains. War replaces brains. There's no such thing as intelligent violence." Major Jakowski of the Afrika Korps comes up with a scheme of his own to outfox the SAS patrols, by leading a force into the desert to intercept them. The result is about as effective as Don Quixote tilting at windmills: "I expect they were up to no good, just like us," Lampard says, "The difference is we're rather better at it, aren't we?" The characters are sketched in quick, deft strokes: you recognize them and empathize with them, even though they might only hang around for a few pages, even if they're not the sort of people you'd like to know. Dialogue is one of Robinson's strengths, and he is on top form here. He describes the desert with a remarkable intensity: flies, heat, sun, sand, flies, spectacular sunsets, dust, more flies; everything comes to life with a harsh vividness that is second only to the real thing. The action scenes are equally graphic, sparing no details. They are as emotionally grippi

Derek Robinson scores a great hit with his A GOOD CLEAN FIGHT. Set amidst the shifting "ping-pong" war of 1942 North Africa, this story jumps between two groups of English soldiers. Robinson's econimical style is subtle and very stylish. His humor is dry and very real. His characters are beautfully done, and the action is both facinating and horrific. This is THE BEST World War II novel I have read.