A Good Clean Fight
1st Edition cover
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| Author | Derek Robinson |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | War novel |
| Published | 1993 (Harvill) |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 453 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 28065890 |
| Preceded by | Piece of Cake |
| Followed by | Damned Good Show |
A Good Clean Fight is a 1993 novel by Derek Robinson, and a sequel to Piece of Cake (1983), his famous and controversial novel of the Battle of Britain. It continues the story of RAF Hornet Squadron, now posted to North Africa in 1942, during a lull in the fighting. Some of the characters from the previous novel, such as Squadron Leader "Fanny" Barton and erudite but iconoclastic intelligence officer "Skull" Skelton, reprise their roles. As the squadron engages in increasingly suicidal ground attacks in an effort to lure the Luftwaffe into a fight, Captain Jack Lampard leads an SAS patrol behind enemy lines and Paul Schramm, a German intelligence officer, tries to concoct his own scheme to beat the SAS at their own game.
The fictional RAF Hornet Squadron features in several novels by Derek Robinson, most notably Piece of Cake, which detailed their service during the first year of the Second World War. In that novel the squadron was equipped with the Hawker Hurricane, but by the time A Good Clean Fight takes place they have been replaced with the Curtiss P-40 Tomahawks and Kittyhawks. Many of the surviving characters from the previous novel return, including: "Fanny" Barton, the squadron's young New Zealander commanding officer; "Pip" Patterson, a Scottish pilot who has been promoted to Flight Lieutenant; "Skull" Skelton, a former Cambridge University don who serves as the squadron's intelligence officer and voices many unpopular theories about the war; and Flight Lieutenant "Uncle" Kellaway, the squadron's adjutant and a veteran of the First World War. Unusual for a Derek Robinson novel, A Good Clean Fight also features other branches of the armed forces, such as a patrol of the Special Air Service (SAS), as well as several characters from the Luftwaffe and Afrikakorps.
A Good Clean Fight is set in North Africa in the spring of 1942. The British 8th Army is fighting against Axis forces advancing across Libya towards Egypt. Captain Lampard of the British SAS has led a motorised patrol across the inland ‘sand seas’ to penetrate deep behind German lines. Lampard is a brave officer but he has a serious flaw, a tendency to be overly reckless and to bite off more than he can chew. Infiltrating a German Luftwaffe base at Barce, Lampard's patrol destroy dozens of aircraft without a single casualty. They also capture a Luftwaffe intelligence officer, Major Paul Schramm. Whilst the patrol are hiding from a German plane, Schramm escapes on foot. Lampard sends Corporal Harris out after him but by sheer fluke, Schramm manages to kill his pursuer. The Major makes it back to Barce and he takes off as a passenger in a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch to search for the SAS patrol. They find Lampard's force but the SAS soldiers damage the plane with gunfire, forcing it to crash-land, leaving Schramm injured. Lampard, disregarding warnings from his men, brings his patrol close to a known enemy base. They are fired upon by Italian troops, killing one of Lampard's men.
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