A stunning novel from 1951, written by Englishman Walter Baxter. A war novel that dared to highlight gay relationships (homosexual) in the army in the second world war. Just to put the date into perspective it was still British armed forces policy not to recruit homosexuals as late as 2000 and it was still 16 years before the sexual offences act legalised homosexuality for consenting adults in 1967. No surprise then that Baxter's first novel received some good reviews, but sold few copies. A neglected masterpiece - perhaps?

Baxter served in the British army during the second world war as a company commander; the company fought in Burma and then retreated to India. Baxter's novel is set in Burma during the second world war at the time of the Japanese invasion. The British army stretched and largely in disarray stage a tactical withdrawal into India. Anson is a private in the army and serves as batman to Captain Tony Kent. Anson is homosexual and is struggling with an abusive relationship with fellow private Goodwin. He finds himself attracted to Kent, but there seem to be insurmountable barriers of rank, class and sex. Kent is married, but is struggling to come to terms with his marriage to Celia and has difficulty in writing to her back home in England; he has a half hearted affair with an Anglo-Indian nurse.

The Japanese invasion is a rude awakening for some army units in Burma, who have seen no fighting action until faced with a formidable enemy. Captain Tony Kent is second in command of a unit of 120 men and is detailed to be part of a protective screen of a ridge of high ground to hold up the Japanese advance. They are soon involved in heavy and desperate fighting in jungle terrain. The Japanese are efficient and brutal and Kent's unit is in danger of being overrun. He performs a heroic rescue of an injured private and his tactical nohow keeps his unit functioning, but he does not get everything right and struggles with the conscripted men. He is always glad to have Anson with him who looks after him, perhaps a little over and above his duties as a batman. The two men find themselves in a frightening and desperate situation, the night of a sustained attack and cling to each other in a sexual embrace. They are captured and beaten up by the Japanese and Anson proves himself more resourceful under extreme physical pressure and engineers their escape.

The descriptions of the running battles with the Japanese are tense and exciting, the brutality of war is handled well, with Baxter not dwelling too much on individual horrors. The physical hardship of fighting is felt mainly through the eyes and body of Tony Kent and this is Baxer's greatest achievement. Kent is a British junior officer who knows his place in the world, the conscripted men are beneath him mentally and socially and the Anglo-Indians are of another race, he does not treat them cruelly, but they do not feature in any way as equals. He cannot countenance his relationship with Anson, but he feels a desperate need of it. In contrast Anson's character is not drawn quite so well, his passivity at times seems to go beyond the bounds of such a resourceful man, but he is a man in love with an impossible figure in Tony Kent. Seeing the world through Tony Kent's eyes most of the time means that racism and sexism are typical of the epoch, but Baxter does not overdo it. The Anglo-Indian nurse Dean is herself a conflicted figure and her giving way to Tony Kent is in keeping with her situation; at the heart of Tony Kent there is cowardice even rottenness, but he still elicits some sympathy from this reader.

I read the 2014 reprint which has a useful introduction by Gregory Woods and the alternate ending (as an appendix) written specifically for the American market. In my opinion, this novel is right up there with the best novels I have read from 1951 concerning the second world war and that includes [Fires on the Plain] by Shohei Ooka which was a five star read and so five stars for this one too. (The Hollywood alternate ending doesn't work) ( )

Baxter's first novel, Look Down in Mercy, published in 1951, drew on his military experience.[3] Set in Burma and other Far East locations during World War II, it centres on the homosexual relationship between an officer, Tony Kent, and his batman Anson.[4][5] Although Kent, a British officer stationed in Burma, loves his wife back in England, he seduces a Eurasian nurse. After the brief affair, he feels guilty and hates both the girl and himself. Later, during an especially stressful period, he spends a night with Anson and loses self-respect because of the homosexual act. The officer and the batman are captured after a Japanese attack. Kent initially divulges nothing more than his name, rank and serial number, but after being shown how his fellow soldiers had been tortured, and he is threatened with the same, he reveals to his Japanese interrogator all of the information he knows. After an air raid, Anson is able to escape, also saving Kent. Their relationship resumes, and Kent kills a soldier who has figured this out and tried to blackmail him. After the company has arrived in India, Kent attempts suicide, but when unsuccessful, finds himself happy to be alive, and to be with Anson.[2][4][6]

Look Down in Mercy was hailed as "an uncommonly good first novel" by Time magazine,[2] and has been deemed "a pioneering study of gay relationships in a hostile and indifferent world".[7] A 1956 scholarly journal article, "The Most Neglected Books of the Past Twenty-Five Years", cited the novel as "very remarkable ... even as truly great", but claimed that most American critics had not acknowledged this.[8]