According to Joseph Pearce, "During the long months of boredom on the Kenyan coast or in hospital in Mombasa, Campbell began to brood over his predicament. In particular, he began to resent the fact that, in spite of his efforts to fight against Hitler, he was still being branded a fascist for having supported Franco. He compared his own position as a volunteer in the armed services with the position of leading left-wing poets such as Louis MacNeice, Stephen Spender, W.H. Auden, and Cecil Day-Lewis, who had settled for 'soft jobs' at home or, in the case of Auden, had emigrated to the United States at the first hint of the coming war."