BATTLE OF MALAYA: Smiling Tiger

(8 of 8)

It was Templer's day—a triumphant return, though his acidulous manner did not show it; long ago he had learned never to drop his guard, or to expose a lurking sensitivity inside. The tough, tired soldier had told Churchill he wanted to get back to the army when this job was done. But he was thinking now of a more peaceful haven than the army. "I don't like this world," he once remarked in Malaya. "It's not my kind of world. I want a little farmhouse in the south of Italy or France, with a garden and my books. Everybody's working too hard. The whole world has gone mad."