1914. Outnumbered British forces are desperately trying to hold off
the oncoming German soldiers in France. Star shells fly high into
the night, illuminating the chaos, violence and death taking place
in the French trenches below.
Like so many other men, Jim Hickman and Bertie Murphy are plunged
into this nightmare. As the war progresses, Jim receives honour
after honour, whilst Bertie sinks deep into depression. And back
home Polly, the girl they both love, must choose between the two
men that is, if they ever come back alive. As the trio are trapped
in physical and mental torment, a terrible tragedy befalls themÂ
Wilcox perfectly captures the horror and tragedy of the First World
War in this vivid and moving novel.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I
grew up in the thirties with the Great War, as it was called, hanging
over the heads of me and of my family like some retrospective
thundercloud. My father was the youngest boy in a late-Victorian
working-class family of fourteen Â- seven boys and seven girls. All of
the boys went off to fight in the trenches, they were all rifle and
bayonet men, not support soldiers, and, miraculously, all of them survived.
The reader will understand, then, that the First World War has
haunted me, not only as a boy wondering about whether he would have
had the courage, like his father and distinguished uncles, to have
gone over the top unhesitatingly into the German wire and
machine-gun fire, but also as a latter-day novelist, writing about
the wars of Empire in the late nineteenth century. I felt unable to
write about the Great War earlier for various reasons, but now I am
happy to have done so. Â- JOHN WILCOX
According to author JOHN WILCOX, an inability to do sums and a
nascent talent to string words together steered him towards journalism -
that and the desire to wear a trench coat, belted with a knot, just like
Bogart. After a number of years working as a journalist, he was lured
into industry. In the mid-nineties he sold his company in order to
devote himself to his first love, writing. He has now published, to high
acclaim, eight Simon Fonthill novels - with a ninth due to be published
in the Spring of 2013 - and two works of non-fiction, including an
autobiography. www. johnwilcoxauthor. co. uk
