London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1950. First edition, first printing. This is a very good copy. The John Minton dust jacket has some small closed tears, sunning at the spine, and some tape reinforcement to the top and tail of the spine. It has not been price clipped (18s. net). The green clothbound boards are notably clean, with some usual bumping from shelf wear. The text blocks are slightly toned, and the side edge a trifle foxed. This copy is inscribed by the author to Malcolm Freshney to the front fly: ‘To Malcolm | from Jim. | “Elephant Bill” | Happy memories of Burma, and elsewhere. Hurry | up home”. Wonderful inscription between two prominent figures of the Burma campaign. Overall, this is a very good copy of a fine signed title. Elephant Bill, or James Howard Williams became the ‘Elephant Adviser’ to the XIVth Army in the Burma campaign. In that capacity, he organised the recruiting of elephants and their riders from behind Japanese lines, and their employment in the jungle country on bridge-building and other military tasks. He served in World War I in the Devonshire Regiment; he was in the Camel Corps, and later Transport Officer in charge of mules. He had read a book by Hawkes, The Diseases of the Camel and the Elephant, and decided he would be interested in a postwar job in Burma. So in 1920 he was in Burma as a Forest Assistant with the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation which milled teak, and used 2000 elephants.