Books: The Lion of Burma

ORDE WINGATE (575 pp.)—Christopher Sykes—World ($6).

In 1933. Orde Wingate was an obscure, 30-year-old British army lieutenant stationed at an obscure post in the Sudan. His future seemed bleak, for most people found him untidy in person and conceited in mind. All his actions tended to infuriate, whether he was receiving visitors naked, or praising Communism to hidebound Tories, or sneering at sports to his athletic fellow officers. It was easy to understand why his schoolboy nickname had been "Stinker."

Stocky (5 ft. 6 in.), with a simian gait, a large, handsome head and a...