Generals die in bed - Charles Yale Harrison

Drawing on his own experiences in the First World War, Charles Yale Harrison tells a stark and poignant story of a young man sent to fight on the Western Front. It is an unimaginably harrowing journey, especially for one not yet old enough to vote. In sparse but gripping prose, Harrison conveys a sense of the horror of life in the trenches. Here is where soldiers fight and die, entombed in mud, surrounded by rats and lice, forced to survive on insufficient rations. Harrison captures the only kind of humour possible under the circumstances of life on the Western Front - dark and sardonic, a mingling of comedy and horror.