Written well over ninety years ago while the experiences of youth were still fresh in the authors mind, this is the story of a seventeen-year-old boy from the time he joined Kitcheners Army, as one of the first hundred thousand in 1914, until he found himself in hospital—an officer with the Military Cross—recovering from his last wound, on the day of the Armistice, 11 November, 1918.In no way a formal record of the great and terrible events it describes, this is a purely personal, almost private, account. It is a plain, unvarnished tale—and even more effective for that—of heroism, and the horror peculiar to trench warfare of the First World War.Interspersed with moments of pity, humor and a deep response to natural beauty and peace out of the firing line, it is a record, which in its details, direct simplicity and manner of telling, comes nearer to the truth than many more ambitious accounts.
