The Preacher vs the Tracker

The Preacher vs the Tracker

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

In times of war, those we are fighting are our foes and the enemies of all mankind. We can’t excoriate them enough. But in times of peace, which bogeymen do we direct our fear and hatred at? In the cinema, it is aliens from other galaxies and creatures from beneath the earth. Novelists turn to the mass media and find that they have three choices: Muslim terrorists; Somali pirates; Russia’s expansionist activities. To be sure, each is dangerous in the short and long run. Writers whose plots contain two of the three deserve a gold star. A brickbat to those who throw in one to spice up their dull stories.

So a gold star for British author Frederick Forsyth for persuasively braiding Muslim terrorism and Somali pirates into The Kill List. He goes the route of Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Jack Higgins, etc, who assert that the president of the US and prime minister of the UK both have private armies. Their function is to kill those too awful to kidnap and put on trial for crimes against humanity, bin Loony for example. These units comprise the best of the best. The US Marine Corps and Britain’s SAS provide the bulk of them. Their weapons of reference aren’t from any one country.

Fully kitted up when parachuting near their objective, they carry 40kg of equipment and often have kilometres of walking to do between drop-off and pick-up.

The fiend on the “kill list” in this story is a Yemeni-American Muslim fanatic. Nicknamed “the Preacher”, he is behind the assassinations of key Yank and Brit military and civilian personnel. Intelligence locates him; he is being guarded by fierce Somali pirates. A combined US/UK team is given the mission of speeding his trip to Paradise.

Marine colonel Kit Carson is known as “the Tracker”. The latter chapters of the book are devoted to the battle royal between the two main protagonists which ends with the Tracker giving the Preacher a fatal “Glasgow kiss” (headbutt).

For readers who never understood the difference between al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Forsyth clearly explains it. The Kill List is better than the majority of thrillers about Muslim terrorism. As for Messrs Obama and Cameron having private armies, this reviewer has yet to be convinced.

A decisive battle

This reviewer never ceases to be frustrated by the contradiction in historical novels between the title page, which asserts that the book is a work of fiction, and the author’s note explaining how much of the history is based on research. Still, he or she allows that poetic licence has been used wherever facts are missing or in order to firm up the actual events.

Bernard Cornwell, a British citizen who does much of his work in America, is a prolific author of historical novels about his homeland, centuries and millennia past. His plots and characters cleverly entwine what was with what could have been. He is adept at describing chapter-long battles between armies and one-on-one duels.

Broadly speaking, the Dark Ages lasted from the fall of Rome to the capture of Constantinople (including the period of the Crusades). In fact much was going on, in and around Europe, during those thousand years, not all involving so-called barbarians. The Moors overran Spain; the Vikings, Moscovy. Holy Mother Church introduced confessionals.

In the 9th century, Danes ruled the north of what is now England, Saxons the south. During the 10th century they went to war to determine who would run the lot. If King Arthur had ever existed, the location of Camelot remained a mystery; to the people of that time, it was one of any number of mysteries. The search for the Holy Grail was ongoing. Where were the bones of saints? The swords of great warriors of yore? Slivers from the True Cross? Blood was spilled over possession of those items that were found. Priests on opposing sides assured the respective combatants that God was with them. In Cornwell’s The Pagan Lord, the focus is on the Danish-Saxon conflict in 910 AD for control of England. No gunpowder back then, but plenty of long swords (and short swords), shields, battle-axes, lances, bows and arrows, knives, chainmail, helmets and horses (wearing their own armour). Hand-to-hand, dripping blood, slipping on gut, the odour of guano. Screams, insults, singing (the Welsh). No flame-throwers, but fires lit and live enemies thrown into them. Doctors behind the lines, with soldiers whose limbs had been sliced off in battle, doing more praying than tending. Could weapons of mass destruction be more horrendous than this? Captured civilians were slaughtered, raped or sold as slaves.

History has it that the Saxons won. Little do they know that, a century later, the Normans will land on their shores. Others will try in the millennium that follows. Happily, neither the Emperor nor the Fuhrer will succeed.

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