OUT OF DARKNESS. By Kenneth Ingram. (Chatto and Windus. 7s.
6d.)--Dennis Laidlaw is an anti-aircraft officer in Flanders during the Great War. Near to where lie is stationed he discovers, hiding at a farmhouse, his old college friend, Charles Feversham, who, after a scandal in which he had been involved, had fled from London before the War and settled in Belgium, where he married a Flemish woman and became the father of two children. Feversham is artist, egotist, and individualist, and, even with German shells bursting around, he continues stubbornly his own life and interests. Dennis at first urges him to enlist, but soon falls under the spell of the Feversham household, whieh offers s pleasant haven of refuge from the snonotony of militarS duties on a quiet sector. Then, however, Colonel Bairhura who has an old score against Feversham, turns up on this part of the Front. He discovers Feversham, and makes things so hot for him that he flees. Feversham joins the French Ann9 and disappears from the story, which turns upon the lust fse revenge against Bairburn Which develops in Feversham's wife. Fighting grows " lively " in the neighbourhood, and so intensely dramatic narrative moves to an unexpected. vet convincing, climax. The war scenes are cleverly described, but they are well relegated to the background, and admirabIS fulfil their main purpose of throwing a searchlight upon the characters.
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