Books: Coffin to Coffin

THE CASE OF SERGEANT GRISCHA—Arnold Zweig—Viking ($2.50).

The Story. Much as he liked his German guards and his fellow Russian prisoners, Grischa had had enough of prison camp. True, he had heard that Russia was done for and the War near an end—it was blustery March of 1917—but enough was enough, and he yearned Eastward toward his wife and little girl. His monotonous duty was to pile timber in freight cars bound for the front. At the end of one carload he neatly constructed a cavity for himself, and that night slipped out of the...