The Code of Love: The True Story of Two Lovers Torn Apart by the War That Brought Them Together (Wheeler Large Print Book Series) - Hardcover

Linklater, Andro

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1587241773 ISBN 13: 9781587241772

Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc, 2002

Synopsis

The Code of Love is Andro Linklater's portrait of a woman's search, for over fifty years, to discover the truth about the man to whom she devoted her life. In the spring of 1939, Pamela Kirrage, headstrong and beautiful, met Donald Hill, a handsome RAF pilot. After a golden summer of courtship, they became engaged. In September, with Britain now in conflict with Germany, their plans disintegrated. Hill was transferred to the Far East to defend Hong Kong. Sensing that he was caught up in the sweep of great events, he began a diary in an old school exercise book. However, officers serving abroad were forbidden to keep such records, so Hill devised a secret code that transformed his words into numbers. When Hong Kong fell to the Japanese and Hill was captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp, he took his diary with him. The Donald Hill who returned from the war, after four brutal years of incarceration, was a dramatically changed man. Though he and Pamela married quickly, once the relief and emotion of their reunion had subsided it was obvious that Donald had been scarred deeply by his experiences. Eventually, tortured by savage flashbacks, he was confined to hospital. Pamela had always known that the numbers in the school book were a code and that somewhere within the lines of figures she would discover the key to understanding Donald's mental collapse. Eventually, after Donald's death, she found a mathematician who was able decode the diary and reveal its account of Donald's suffering in the camps. The Code of Love is an unforgettable love story. It demonstrates vividly what happens when ordinary people are caught up in global events and transports us back to a romantic world that prizes different values: honour, duty, loyalty.

About this title

Review

Andro Linklater, the travel writer and prize-winning biographer of Compton Mackenzie, has discovered a truly thrilling and heartrending story. Here is his account of unimaginable suffering and of love surviving across several years and many thousands of miles of separation. It is also a portrait of another age, of reticence and understatement, duty and loyalty, before our own age with its rather different values of "self-fulfilment" and the tell-all confessional.

In the spring of 1939, the beautiful young Pamela Kirrage met and quickly became engaged to a handsome young RAF pilot called Donald Hill. Soon after, Hill was transferred out to Hong Kong. When the city fell to the invading Japanese Army, Hill was imprisoned in Sham Sui POW camp and what he suffered at the hands of the Japanese over the next few years left him a changed man for life. When he returned to Pamela and England, they got married but he could never talk about his time in the camp and eventually, in 1970, he was finally confined to hospital in a state of mental collapse. In 1985 he died in Pamela's arms. But the story does not end there. For Donald left behind a coded diary that took another decade to crack. When its meanings were revealed, it told the full story of just what had happened to Donald and, at last, Pamela understood. It is a remarkable account, sensitively written by Linklater, skilfully interweaving the thrills of code-breaking with the romantic early days and later dark days of Pamela and Donald's marriage. The Code of Love is fascinating, compassionate and deeply moving. --Christopher Hart

Review

"It is impossible to read this book and not be moved."-"Daily Telegraph" (London)
"A true romance, evocative of a passing generation and their triumphs and tribulations."-"Kirkus Reviews
""Linklater tells the story with great skill." -"The Times" (London)
"What makes the book compelling is its sympathy for real people coping with a world conflagration that had nothing to do with them." -"The Herald" (Scotland)
"s"

It is impossible to read this book and not be moved. Daily Telegraph (London)
A true romance, evocative of a passing generation and their triumphs and tribulations. Kirkus Reviews
"Linklater tells the story with great skill." -The Times (London)
What makes the book compelling is its sympathy for real people coping with a world conflagration that had nothing to do with them." -The Herald (Scotland)
s"

Edition details

• Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1587241773
• ISBN 13: 9781587241772
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 343