Mine were of Trouble is an unusual book, covering an unusual topic, by an unusually erudite Englishman of the early 20th-century upper middle class. The protagonist, a Tory-minded student at Cambridge by the name of Peter Kemp, is strongly anti-communist in temperament. Although we don’t hear much about his father, this would not be unusual at the time given someone who grew up in the 1920s/30s and would have known of Bolshevik and other revolutionary threats to the established British order. In any case, this sensibility leads him to Spain in 1936 where, in contrast to so many of his countrymen, he volunteers for the Nationalist cause. To realize this is unusual one only has to peruse the bibliographic literature in English, a record thoroughly dominated by the Republican side. The latter may have lost the war to Franco, but they certainly won the “battle of the ink,” shaping the results over the decades by dominating discourse ever since.The book itself covers Kemp’s two years of experience in the Spanish Civil War, beginning his adventure with a certain naiveté (as does everyone who goes to war, myself included), and ending as a reasonably adept soldier, a man who spent time under fire, was wounded twice (the second time very seriously) and who kept his head during the chaos of battle. Although I’ve been shot at (and rocketed and shelled), I’ve never been in close combat and it is Kemp’s descriptions of those times that makes the reader ponder the question of how you would behave in that situation. That his writing triggers those internal questions is evidence the book is well-written and allows even us, separated from that time and place by almost 90 years, to engage with its deeper points.One of these is the question of atrocities and prisoners. Kemp does note a few atrocities in passing, including the particularly gruesome approach taken by Republicans to Catholic priests, but his personal feelings are more engaged by the treatment of foreign volunteers (for obvious reasons!). In the latter half of the war, Kemp obtained a commission in the Spanish Legion. As it was the most professional force on the Nationalist side, Kemp then participated in heavy fighting against Republican strong points. In the aftermath, he often came across captured members of the International Brigades, comprised of Irish, Canadian, American and British volunteers. These men were very often shot on the spot. After complaining about one such event, Kemp was told by his Spanish commander that the foreigners were prolonging the suffering of the Spanish people and deserved no mercy. The discerning reader will soon realize that Kemp’s struggle to deal with the extremism engendered by civil war is recognizable in our own difficulties in understanding our own civil wars (i.e. Syria).To be fair the book is not all gloom, indeed it is full of lively humor and joie de vivre, including many amusing asides of miserable billets, farcical escapades and drunken soldiers in addition to the many ironies and “catch-22s” that anyone sees and experiences in a war zone. Of particular interest, which Kemp describes in some detail, is how well he moved through the milieu of the European upper middle class of the 1930s. I was struck by how often Kemp relied on a friend, a family member or a university acquaintance to navigate many confusing, sometimes treacherous, circumstances. This was true when he arrived in country – after pretending to be a tourist (!) – and manages an interview that obtains him his first commission when he can barely speak Spanish. He’s then able to leverage that into additional assignments, culminating by the time he departs Spain for the last time in the summer of 1939 in an interview with Franco himself. It made me think of some of the difficulties experienced by those volunteers in recent years who’ve gone to fight for the Kurds against ISIS.An easy to read book, with a good story and filled with anecdote, wit and the occasional serious note. Well worth it.