Pied Piper by Nevil Shute

 This book was recommended to me by a friend and I'm glad I read it.

 

It's set during WW2 and was written while the war was still ongoing and the outcome unknown.

 

War is not kind to old men.  Too old to fight and with little sense of purpose, John Howard goes to southern France to take a break fishing.

 

While there, he is asked by an acquaintance if he will take their two children back to England for safety, as the war is spreading further and they no longer feel safe.

 

Howard agrees, but what should have been a simple journey home gets more and more complicated as the Germans start advancing across France.  Trains get cancelled, food gets harder to find. Being English suddenly becomes very dangerous, and to make life even more difficult, there are other children that the war has left in dire straits.

 

One of the reasons this story works so well for me is that Howard is a very believable character.  He's not a man given to emotional outbursts or temper - he's calm and organised and takes things as they come. Which is not to say that he isn't worried or concerned or uncaring, but he's 70 and he knows his own physical limitations and he also knows exactly how hard you can push young children before everything becomes too much for them.  Therefore, when he has to take things slowly, he accepts that and doesn't waste energy over things he can't control.

 

He manages to shield the children, as far as he can, from a full understanding of what is going on around them, and oddly enough, this makes the reader even more aware of the impact of war.

 

In a quiet, understated way, this is war from the civilian angle, long streams of refugees, people dying in allied bombing raids, the ongoing struggle for food and shelter.

 

Do they make it safely to England?

 

Read the book and find out for yourself.