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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable Read,
By
This review is from: Too Few for Drums (Classics of Military Fiction) (Paperback)
While not the best novel for characterization, Too Few For Drums is an enjoyable novel about the Peninsular Campaign. The descriptions of Spain are good. The technical aspects of the novel including units, uniforms, movements of the armies, etc., are accurate. True, the characters are stereotypical and somewhat shallow. If anything, I would say that the novel was too short and needed more work before its release.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Delderfield visits the Penninsular War,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Too few for drums (Hardcover)
This novel is set against the backdrop of Wellington's Penninsular campaign, around the year 1810. Wellington's army is retreating to Lisbon and being chased by a large force under Napoleon's Marshal Massena. 19 year-old British ensign Keith Graham is cut off with a squad of 8 men and a drummer boy after a nervous engineer prematurely detonates explosives destroying a bridge. The inexperienced Graham is aided first by a veteran sergeant, and later by a very wise Welsh camp follower named Gwyneth.
Fans of Cornwell's Sharpe's Rifles series will recognize many of the plot elements: a small force cut off behind enemy lines, the "war of atrocities" between the spanish partisans and the French, the need for constant vigilance against roving French cavalry patrols, etc. But of course this novel was written a generation before Cornwell even began the Sharpe's Rifles series, so if anyone borrowed, it was Cornwell, not Delderfield. Graham has to learn alot about leadership and resourcefulness in a hurry. He comes to respect the courage and determination of his men, despite the class differences that create such a gulf between he and them. Above all he comes to respect and rely upon Gwyneth, the camp follower they meet along the way. A previous reviewer calls her a "Welsh wonder woman," which is not an exaggeration. Even though she is only a couple of years older than Grahm, she has been following the army for over five years. Still, that hardly seems sufficient time for her to have absorbed more strategy and tactics than Wellington and Napoleon combined. As Delderfield depicts her, she should have been a captain or a major; indeed, the war would have been over much sooner had she been commanding the entire British army. Not that this ruined the novel for me; I enjoyed it very much. It is clear that Delderfield has great respect for women and regards them as fully human, whereas Cornwell draws them only as prizes to be won by male bravery. This novel does not compare favorably to Cornwell only in that no major engagement is described, whereas Cornwell always includes a history lesson by desribing an important battle.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too Few for Drums,
By melviny (Honolulu, Hawaii United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Too Few for Drums (Classics of Military Fiction) (Paperback)
After reading Delderfield's Seven Men of Gascony I looked forward to this book with great anticipation. I was however gravely disappointed. The Penninsula campaign of the Napoleonic Wars is the setting for Too Few for Drums. This novel follows the trials of a young British ensign and his file of infantrymen as they make their way from behind French lines. It lacks the breadth and scope of his other novel. Some of the plot mechanism lack credulity. The ensign is transformed from an inexperienced self doubting young officer to a confident, future leader of men by the mere act of losing his virginity. Were it only so easy!
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