Sadie Jones - Small Wars

review by Corinna christopher on show 14th July
Hall Treherne is a professional soldier keen to see action and after a spell in Germany he is sent to Cyprus in 1956. With his wife Clara and small twin daughters they set up home in the British base which is near Limasol in the centre of the island.

A brief history of the island is pertinent here. In 1878 Cyprus came under British administration , but in the 1930’s Greeks on the island began to want union with Greece in spite of many Turks living there as well. In 1955 EOKA a Greek organisation led by Archbishop Makarios began a guerilla war against Britain . There was fierce fighting and it became a Republic in 1960. Makarios was eventually overthrown and Turkey invaded which resulted in partition, with the North set up with their own government which is still not recognised internationally to-day.
Hall called the war in Cyprus “this small, dirty struggle” and he found it difficult to cope with the conditions he found, in particular with the cruelty, torturing and betrayal of comrades and Islanders. After a scene in the guardroom he thought “his country,his schoolboy land of heirarchies, was defeated.”

Clara tried very hard to fit in with a new way of life together with the other wives and her 2 small twin girls. However, Hal became much changed and distant and they were unable to talk properly. Clara became pregnant after a few months and following a distressing bomb incident on the beach it was decided that Clara and girls should move to the capital Nicosia. It was while there that she was involved in a terrible explosian on the street that nearly killed her and resulted in losing her baby. The Army thought it expedient for her to return home and at the last moment Hall accompanied her in spite of orders to return to his unit due to the intensity of warfare in the area.
Things were very different back in the UK. Hall was in deep trouble with his bosses in the Army and would not offer any unmitigating circumstances for his behaviour. He left the Army and had to try and make a fresh start. Clara meanwhile was still very frail and had these comments:- “Cyprus, It had been encased around and above in hard blue sea and sky. They had made their small home on it, been taken in by it, and she had lost him. Such a small place to loose a person, and now released, they were both alone.”

The ending to this story is completely satisfactory and the reader feels pleased to have survived such a raw emotional experience. The prose throughout is precise and powerful with no surplus facts or waffling, very easy to read and keep pages turning. Thoroughly well written, gripping and with a real insight into the Troubles of this small nation. There has obviously been much excellent research

Sadie Jones’ first novel “The Outcast” was very good and this book I feel is even better.
review by Corinna