Description: Eight Hours from England by Anthony Quayle This is the scarce 1945 First Edition, in well-used condition A novel by the famous Actor, based on his own War-time experiences with S.O.E. in the Balkans “How would you like to go into the Balkans?” “Not at all at this time of year, thanks. Too much snow.” “I’m serious. Greece, Albania, Jugoslavia—you can choose.” Front cover and spine Further images of this book are shown below Publisher and place of publication Dimensions in inches (to the nearest quarter-inch) London: William Heinemann Ltd 5 inches wide x 7½ inches tall Edition Length 1945 First Edition Please note that there is a printing error on the copyright page, which shows the date of publication as "194". This should, of course, be "1945" as there was only one Heinemann Edition. 224 pages Condition of covers Internal condition Original dark blue cloth. The covers are heavily scuffed and rubbed, and very dull with significant variation in colour and a number of old stains. There is loss of colour along the front edges and old stains the most prominent being in the centre top section. There is a thin diagonal strip of staining on the top rear cover, with other stains in the lower half. The spine is extremely dull , such that it is difficult to read the author and title. The spine ends and corners are bumped and slightly frayed, and there are a number of indentations along the edges of the boards, with the most prominent being along the rear top edge. The boards are quite thin (a War-time expedient) and have bowed out a little and there is a very marked forward spine lean. There is play in the inner hinges, which are slack and quite tender, and there is some separation between the inner gatherings. A label has been partially removed from the rear end-paper map, leaving some residue (please see the final image below). The volume was produced to War "Economy Standard" ("This book is produced in complete conformity with the authorized economy standards"), using a lower grade of paper which has tanned noticeably with age. Also, some pages are stained or have grubby marks, particularly pages 86 to 92. The edge of the text block is grubby, dust-stained and lightly foxed, and with a few old stains. A few pages are chipped at the edge and some corners have been creased down. Dust-jacket present? Other comments No In very dull and stained covers, and with the usual issues associated with books produced during the Second World War (the "authorized economy standard"), including poor quality paper, but now scarce in the First Edition. Illustrations, maps, etc Contents NONE : No illustrations are called for; there is sketch map on the end-papers (shown below). There are fourteen untitled chapters Post & shipping information Payment options The packed weight is approximately 500 grams. Full shipping/postage information is provided in a panel at the end of this listing. Payment options : UK buyers: cheque (in GBP), debit card, credit card (Visa, MasterCard but not Amex), PayPal International buyers: credit card (Visa, MasterCard but not Amex), PayPal Full payment information is provided in a panel at the end of this listing. Eight Hours from England Excerpt: . . . The knowledge that Germans—a company of them, it appeared—were established in Dukat made a change in the atmosphere of Grama. The camp that had felt so secure felt so, indeed was so, no longer. The Albanians sat about in groups, discussing the news with long faces: Old Ali, alone among them, preserved his detached and philosophic air. No doubt long years of knavishness had inured him to life's vagaries. In due course, Tank arrived from Sea View. He brought with him Sergeant Butcher, his Marine wireless operator, and the ever-faithful, if bedraggled, Alpino. He also brought news which did nothing to dispel the feeling of uneasiness that pervaded the camp. On the very morning following the sortie no less than thirty Italian soldiers had crossed the mountain and dropped down into Sea View. The Dukat guards, in spite of my orders to the contrary, had apparently allowed them to pass. No doubt they felt that Dukat, with the Germans installed in it, was well rid of their dangerous presence. Nor was this all: another large party was believed to be on its way and expected momentarily. It seemed that the movement I had always feared had started, and that all the Italian soldiers, scattered in the mountains for miles around, were slowly on the move towards the pin-point on the coast whence they hoped would come their salvation. I sent Old Ali to Dukat with instructions that the flow must somehow be stopped. For one thing there was no way of finding out if there was a spy among them, and anyhow I had no desire to have a few score unarmed and moribund Italians on my hands should the Germans come to smoke us out. I sent an urgent signal to Cleaver; he was to cancel the Vuno sortie, but send a boat at once to take away the Italians. I also begged him to send me a British second-in-command, and a good Italian officer to handle the whole business of Italian evacuation. To go to Dukat and have a talk with the Old Men was out of the question. Though they were probably in need of a little fortification and encouragement it would have entailed a three-days' trip, and I dared not leave the camp so long for fear of missing Mucho, who was now daily expected. Nigel returned—alone. He had been unable to enter Vuno; there were too many Germans about for a man in British uniform. But Georgie had gone on, saying that he would make his way to the monastery and join Black; he had promised to get word to us of how the drive went. And every day by the coast it poured with rain and sleet, and every day the snow on the mountain deepened till messengers from Dukat found it difficult to pass the summit, so deep were the drifts. If this limited our supply of news from the valley it also gave us one less approach to watch, since an armed German was as likely to get stuck in the snow as an Albanian shepherd— and it did not appear that the men in Dukat were ski-troops. It was important to decide our plan of action should the enemy appear. When I was clear in my own mind what we should do I called the British and Americans together; I wanted every man to feel that he had a share in the decision so that he could act with conviction. As there were only six of us, one man in disagreement meant a high proportion of doubt. "What we have to decide," I said, "is whether we sit and fight, or whether we clear out if we get news that the Germans are coming. One of our main troubles here is lack of reliable information. There aren't enough of us to maintain a guard on all the approaches to this camp: for that you'd need twenty Allied soldiers. I've moved a party of Albanian guards down to the south, but I haven't much confidence in them." "Nor I." The Marine sergeant spoke with great emphasis. "These Albs won't fight. Leastways," he corrected himself, "not unless they're properly cornered." "I agree," I said. "Further, if the Germans do come, I don't even trust the Albanians to give us reliable information." Nigel cut in. "Excuse me," he said quietly, "but I don't understand this discussion. It seems perfectly clear to me. Haven't we been sent here to kill Germans? Then why should we complain if they save us the trouble of looking for them?" He gave a smile, so as to take the asperity out of his words. "Certainly we're here to kill Germans," I replied. "But surely at a time and place of our own choosing. The one thing we want to avoid is to get pinned down in a futile scuffle at this stage, before our work is really started. If we can avoid a fight now, we should; we can do more damage later on." So it was decided. Every man had orders to prepare, and keep at hand, a pack of his essential belongings and some "K" rations, so that we could abandon camp at a moment's notice if necessary. Wireless operators were to carry with them their crystals, cipher pads and radio plans. We spent an afternoon stowing away the heavy radio equipment; charging motors, batteries, and cased petrol were hidden in holes in the cliff face, then covered over with brush-wood, so that the Germans, if they came, could not find them. "I suppose you're pleased now, you damned old reactionary," I said to Benson. "Now the Partisans can get nothing from me— neither bombs nor biscuits. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that you had engineered the whole thing." Tank shook his head, smiling. "I'm much too afraid for my own skin to do that," he said. "Although I might, even at that," he went on after a moment's reflection. "Do you know Italy well?" The sudden question was surprising. "Not particularly," I replied. "Why?" "Because," said Tank—and his dark eyes took on a fixed, hot look as they always did when he spoke of women—"because I have two passions in, life, and the other one is Italy." "What's that got to do with supplying the Partisans through Vuno?" I asked. "Because whatever happens this side of the Adriatic is going to affect Italy, and I love Italy as though she were a woman. I love her for her experience and her beauty, for the way she thinks and talks, for her very smell. . . ." He broke off and looked at me. "You and your God-damn communists will kill Italy." There was real bitterness in his words. "She has thrown off the domination of one lover—Fascism, and now you blind soldiers are busy injecting virility into another husky brute— Communism." He gave a short laugh. "I guess I've a right to protest against the rape of a woman I love." On the tenth of February the wind was blowing strong from the south, but a signal came saying that every attempt would be made to send a boat that night to take off the Italians. I sent an Albanian runner up to Sea View to collect them, and by six in the evening they started coming into Grama. "I thought you said there were thirty," I said to Benson. "I've counted over sixty." They were in a very emotional state at the prospect of returning to Italy. We had no huts for them, but they made little fires under the shelter of the cliff and huddled round them quite happily. As darkness fell they began to sing; there was a Neapolitan among them with a good voice, and Drake too, who had a fine baritone, could not resist giving a spirited rendering of the 'Song of Songs'. He was loudly applauded. Looking at the grey, tumbled seas, I thought it only humane lo go round and warn them against over-optimism, but nothing could depress them that night. They were convinced that dawn would find them back in their beloved Italy. Eagerly they took it in turns to signal, starting an hour earlier than the boat was even expected and taking turn and turn about for the coveted position of look-out. Discretion was forgotten; i continuous flow of Morse shot out over the waters, but it was of no avail. The hours went by; spirits slowly sank; the singing round the fires died down; but not till two in the morning would the poor fellows reconcile themselves to the obvious fact that the sortie had failed, and stop their flashing. The Italians, in the morning, were woe-begone and disconsolate. The sea still ran high and offered little hope for a sortie, so we took the last part of the day in rigging some rough shelters to protect them from the continuous rain. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when I heard running feet outside my hut, then Chela's voice, an octave higher than usual, crying: "Major! Quick, quick! The Germans are coming!" The alarm and urgency in his voice brought me squirming nut through the doorway. He must have given a general alarm already, for the Italians had caught fright and were running helter-skelter out of the camp towards the track that led down to the beach. Chela was jigging about with nerves. "Major," he pleaded. "Please . . . Please . . . We cannot stay . . . run quick." He wrung his hands. "Shut up, Chela," I said. "Calm down and tell me what has happened?" . . . Biographical Information Sir John Anthony Quayle, CBE (7 September 1913 – 20 October 1989) British-born actor, film star and director. Quayle was born in Ainsdale, Southport, Lancashire, to a Manx family. He was educated at the private Abberley Hall School and Rugby School and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. After appearing in music hall, he joined the Old Vic in 1932. During World War II, he was a British Army officer and was made one of the area commanders of the Auxiliary Units in Northumberland. Later he joined the Special Operations Executive and served as a liaison officer with the partisans in Albania (reportedly his service with the SOE seriously affected him, and he never felt comfortable talking about it). He described his experiences in a fictionalised form in Eight Hours from England. He was an aide to the Governor of Gibraltar at the time of the air crash of General Władysław Sikorski's aircraft on 4 July 1943. He fictionalised his Gibraltar experience in his second novel On Such a Night, published by Heinemann. From 1948 to 1956 Quayle directed at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and laid the foundations for the creation of the Royal Shakespeare Company. His own Shakespearian roles included Falstaff, Othello, Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, Henry VIII and Aaron in Titus Andronicus opposite Laurence Olivier; he played Mosca in Ben Jonson's Volpone; and he also appeared in contemporary plays. His first film role was a brief uncredited one as an Italian wigmaker in the 1938 Pygmalion – subsequent film roles included parts in Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Battle of the River Plate (both 1956), Ice Cold in Alex (1958), Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959), The Guns of Navarone (1961), H.M.S. Defiant, David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (both 1962) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1969 for his role as Cardinal Wolsey in Anne of the Thousand Days. Often cast as the decent British officer, he drew upon his own wartime experiences, bringing a degree of authenticity to the parts notably absent from the performances of some non-combatant stars. One of his best friends from his days at the Old Vic was fellow actor Alec Guinness, who appeared in several films with him. He was also close friends with Jack Hawkins and Jack Gwillim; all four actors appeared in Lawrence of Arabia. Quayle made his Broadway debut in The Country Wife in 1936. Thirty-four years later, he won critical acclaim for his starring role in the highly successful Anthony Shaffer play Sleuth, which earned him a Drama Desk Award. In 1984 he founded Compass Theatre Company, which he inaugurated with a tour of The Clandestine Marriage, directing and playing the part of Lord Ogleby. With the same company subsequently toured with a number of other plays, including Saint Joan, Dandy Dick and King Lear with Quayle in the title role. Quayle was awarded the CBE in 1952 and knighted in 1985. He died at his home in Chelsea from liver cancer on 20 October 1989. Please note: to avoid opening the book out, with the risk of damaging the spine, some of the pages were slightly raised on the inner edge when being scanned, which has resulted in some blurring to the text and a shadow on the inside edge of the final images. Colour reproduction is shown as accurately as possible but please be aware that some colours are difficult to scan and may result in a slight variation from the colour shown below to the actual colour. In line with eBay guidelines on picture sizes, some of the illustrations may be shown enlarged for greater detail and clarity. There is play in the inner hinges, which are slack and quite tender, and there is some separation between the inner gatherings. A label has been partially removed from the rear end-paper map, leaving some residue: U.K. buyers: To estimate the “packed weight” each book is first weighed and then an additional amount of 150 grams is added to allow for the packaging material (all books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard book-mailer). The weight of the book and packaging is then rounded up to the nearest hundred grams to arrive at the postage figure. I make no charge for packaging materials and do not seek to profit from postage and packaging. Postage can be combined for multiple purchases. Packed weight of this item : approximately 500 grams Postage and payment options to U.K. addresses: Details of the various postage options can be obtained by selecting the “Postage and payments” option at the head of this listing (above). Payment can be made by: debit card, credit card (Visa or MasterCard, but not Amex), cheque (payable to "G Miller", please), or PayPal. Please contact me with name, address and payment details within seven days of the end of the listing; otherwise I reserve the right to cancel the sale and re-list the item. Finally, this should be an enjoyable experience for both the buyer and seller and I hope you will find me very easy to deal with. If you have a question or query about any aspect (postage, payment, delivery options and so on), please do not hesitate to contact me. International buyers: To estimate the “packed weight” each book is first weighed and then an additional amount of 150 grams is added to allow for the packaging material (all books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard book-mailer). The weight of the book and packaging is then rounded up to the nearest hundred grams to arrive at the shipping figure. I make no charge for packaging materials and do not seek to profit from shipping and handling. Shipping can usually be combined for multiple purchases (to a maximum of 5 kilograms in any one parcel with the exception of Canada, where the limit is 2 kilograms). Packed weight of this item : approximately 500 grams International Shipping options: Details of the postage options to various countries (via Air Mail) can be obtained by selecting the “Postage and payments” option at the head of this listing (above) and then selecting your country of residence from the drop-down list. For destinations not shown or other requirements, please contact me before buying. Due to the extreme length of time now taken for deliveries, surface mail is no longer a viable option and I am unable to offer it even in the case of heavy items. I am afraid that I cannot make any exceptions to this rule. Payment options for international buyers: Payment can be made by: credit card (Visa or MasterCard, but not Amex) or PayPal. I can also accept a cheque in GBP [British Pounds Sterling] but only if drawn on a major British bank. Regretfully, due to extremely high conversion charges, I CANNOT accept foreign currency : all payments must be made in GBP [British Pounds Sterling]. This can be accomplished easily using a credit card, which I am able to accept as I have a separate, well-established business, or PayPal. Please contact me with your name and address and payment details within seven days of the end of the listing; otherwise I reserve the right to cancel the sale and re-list the item. Finally, this should be an enjoyable experience for both the buyer and seller and I hope you will find me very easy to deal with. If you have a question or query about any aspect (shipping, payment, delivery options and so on), please do not hesitate to contact me. Prospective international buyers should ensure that they are able to provide credit card details or pay by PayPal within 7 days from the end of the listing (or inform me that they will be sending a cheque in GBP drawn on a major British bank). Thank you. (please note that the book shown is for illustrative purposes only and forms no part of this listing) Book dimensions are given in inches, to the nearest quarter-inch, in the format width x height. Please note that, to differentiate them from soft-covers and paperbacks, modern hardbacks are still invariably described as being ‘cloth’ when they are, in fact, predominantly bound in paper-covered boards pressed to resemble cloth. Fine Books for Fine Minds I value your custom (and my feedback rating) but I am also a bibliophile : I want books to arrive in the same condition in which they were dispatched. For this reason, all books are securely wrapped in tissue and a protective covering and are then posted in a cardboard container. If any book is significantly not as described, I will offer a full refund. Unless the size of the book precludes this, hardback books with a dust-jacket are usually provided with a clear film protective cover, while hardback books without a dust-jacket are usually provided with a rigid clear cover. The Royal Mail, in my experience, offers an excellent service, but things can occasionally go wrong. However, I believe it is my responsibility to guarantee delivery. If any book is lost or damaged in transit, I will offer a full refund. Thank you for looking. Please also view my other listings for a range of interesting books and feel free to contact me if you require any additional information Design and content © Geoffrey Miller
Price: 75 GBP
Location: Flamborough, Bridlington
End Time: 2025-01-29T11:52:17.000Z
Shipping Cost: 26.11 GBP
Product Images
Item Specifics
Return postage will be paid by: Buyer
Returns Accepted: Returns Accepted
After receiving the item, your buyer should cancel the purchase within: 30 days
Return policy details: If any book is significantly not as described, I will offer a full refund, including return postage. All books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard container.
Binding: Hardback
Place of Publication: London
Language: English
Special Attributes: 1st Edition
Fiction Subject: War Fiction
Author: Anthony Quayle
Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd
