Carney Lake served in the Royal Marines for six years, rising to the status of Senior NCO. Changing only the names and some of the locations, he describes actual events in Northern Ireland to convey the feeling of the average British soldier in the Province about the job he is paid to do. Inner thoughts about the enemy, why they are the enemy, what he is doing there, and what the conflict is all about, are a constant theme in Carney's accounts of patrols on the streets of Belfast and on border duty round Crossmaglen.