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Even in war it is necessary to love another.

‘A general will say, "Order the 87th to advance." And if they are not enough or are hacked down, he will send in another regiment. He sees no faces, hears no pitiful cries which will never be answered, only flags, pins on maps.’

‘Men, Mr Blythe. Ordinary, everyday men — you'd never notice any of them in a street or working in the fields in England right? [...] But they are your answer. They are the strength of a ship. So let them not die to no good purpose.’

God and the navy we adore, when danger threatens but not before!

There will always be slaves, no matter what people promise and pretend.

He saw himself reflected in other people's faces, and the horror and the pity he saw there had never ceased to wound him.

[Re the Piat anti-tank weapon] Like many British inventions, it looked improbable, unwieldy, and unsafe - and it worked.

He was ashamed and embarrassed, angry too that such a man could end like this. If peace did eventually come, there would be many more redcoats begging in the streets.

You know how sailors love to create mystery where there is none.

It was a harsh school, right enough ... but a lot of good had come from it.The petty tyrants and bullies were fewer now, for braggarts had little to sustain them in the face of an enemy broadside.

We all have kindly impulses, fostered by two thousand years of Christian teaching, gentle Jesus, and love thy neighbour, but we have the killer instinct, too, the murderous impulse of the hunter...

Only very young soldiers and head-cases object to boredom in war-time.