The Summons Comes for Mr Standfast
In John Buchan’s story about the Great War, Richard Hannay must watch as his friend sacrifices his life for the Allies.
1919
King George V 1910-1936
In John Buchan’s story about the Great War, Richard Hannay must watch as his friend sacrifices his life for the Allies.
1919
King George V 1910-1936
In the Great War, RAF pilot Peter Pienaar endures being shot down, lamed and kept as a prisoner of war with the help of Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’. He has been free only a matter of days when despite his injury he steals a plane to take out the Germans’ flying ace Lensch, by ramming him in mid-air.
THEY took Peter from the wreckage with scarcely a scar except his twisted leg. Death had smoothed out some of the age in him, and left his face much as I remembered it long ago in the Mashonaland hills.
In his pocket was his old battered Pilgrim's Progress. It lies before me as I write, and beside it — for I was his only legatee — the little case which came to him weeks later, containing the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a soldier of Britain.*
It was from the Pilgrim's Progress that I read next morning, when in the lee of an apple-orchard Mary and Blenkiron and I stood in the soft spring rain beside his grave.
Hannay implies that Peter was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
What effect had the mid-air crash had on Peter?
He was dead, but otherwise little injured.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Peter stole a plane. His friends did not notice. They saw him engage Lensch overhead.