The story of soldiers of the Fifth Battalion, the Wessex Regiment, in the run up to and aftermath of D-Day. Although fictional, it comes directly out of the author's own experience and is regarded as one of the most accurate and unsentimental portrayals of the ordinary soldier's life anywhere in fiction. First published in 1948, there have been enthusiastic endorsements from soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, confirming Baron's uncanny knack for capturing the soldier's experience.