The Adventures of Private Faust Author:Hans Hellmut Kirst The time is 1945, the place a POW camp forty miles from Cairo, where the British commandant and his German counterpart while away the long desert hours refighting the Battle of El Alamein in most gentlemanly fashion ("My friend, you've got our third division in the wrong place..."). But the real action goes on in the ranks as two British sergean... more »ts, Vic Sharpe and Jock McKellar, confront the subtle cunning of an insubordinate subordinate named Faust. Wily and resourceful, Private Faust is a man of many attainments and widespread notoriety within the camp - notoriety achieved through his numerous and ingenious escape attempts. A bitter anti-Nazi, Faust is determined to return to Germany and take revenge on the informer who was responsible for the death of his parents. But he is far too useful as a prisoner to be allowed the luxury of escape: His fluency in Arabic endears him to Sergeant Sharpe, who, as the colonel's liaison in Cairo, has been managing a number of unofficial, illegal, and highly profitable sidelines in league with certain wealthy Egyptians. He is equally important to Sergeant McKellar because of his singular aptitude for the bagpipes. Because the coloel smiles on cultural activities, McKellar has organized a drum-and-bagpipe band- - to th eanguish of most of the camp's inmates. And Faust is his number one piper. In short, he has influential protectors, not only against British disciplinary action, but against his own people - the officers, who denounce his anti-Nazism as traitorous, and the troops, who disapprove of the escape attempts that inevitably lead to tighter security measures. Out of these conflicts a crisis emerges - with Faust at the dead center. In The Adventures of Private Faust, Kirst has recreated with searing insight and sardonic humor, a microcosm of the German military hierarchy in the throes of defeat.« less