SYNOPSIS: A Dawn with no Birdsong
This is a novel set on the Western Front during the Great War. It is, however, not a story of war but a powerful indictment of the brutality of the British military system of battlefield ‘justice’. Private Alex Ray is a member of a Welsh division whose section has been seconded to assist with the digging of a tunnel for a forthcoming offensive against Bald Forest Ridge. While moving up to the Front with his section, Alex has helped a French family which consists of a middle-aged woman, Madame Raimond, and her daughter and son, Lisle and Pierrepont. Alex soon becomes involved with the family and village life. During his brief leaves he is welcomed into the Raimonds’ home and considered a member of the family. Lisle, a pretty young girl of almost seventeen years, is haunted by the affection she feels for the Welsh soldier and will do almost anything for him.
However, at the Front, the digging continues, it is a terrible task deep in the bowels of the earth, hampered with cave-ins and the explosions that are raining down on the ground above them. In addition to these dangers the Germans are digging counter-tunnels, camouflets, and brief encounters with the enemy occur; deadly dark and bloody conflicts with shovels and trenching tools in the hot and airless confines of the excavations.
Eventually, when a massive cave-in occurs, the result of a German camouflet, killing one of Alex’s closest friends and several other men, two British soldiers refuse to go into the tunnel. They are arrested and charged with cowardice — a capital offence in the trenches. However, before they can be brought to trial the Germans suddenly counterattack and Madame Raimond’s farm is in danger of being overrun. Despite the possibility of being charged with desertion, Alex fulfils a promise he has made to Madame Raimond that in this eventuality he will do what he can to help her and her family. The German attack is repulsed but Alex is charged with leaving his post and taken with the two British soldiers to the notorious military training camp and stockade at Étaples. Here Alex is subjected to horrifying ordeals, including, beatings, crucifixion to a wagon-wheel, and other forms of physical torture — all accurate portrayals of such punishments as they were being inflicted upon British and colonial troops at that time.
The two soldiers with whom Alex is incarcerated know that they have only one option. They have been court-martialled, found guilty and the sentence of death has been passed. They must either await the execution of their sentences or escape from the prison compound. This they finally manage to do, taking a somewhat reluctant Alex with them. Alex lives in hiding for several months as the hunt for him continues. He is constantly moving from place to place, protected by Madame Raimond and her family and friends as the red-capped military police attempt to track him down. Alex learns to love the people who are protecting him, the village undertaker who takes Alex into his house and heart, and many others, including Madame Raimond's daughter, Lisle, whose fierce determination and pride will never allow Alex to go before a firing squad. Finally, at the end of the war, Alex finds it increasingly difficult to remain at large. As the war ends more troops are made available to hunt down absconders. Can Alex evade the mass of men searching for him or will he be captured, condemned and shot?
This story is designed to portray the warmth and human feelings of the men who fought on the Western Front and the difficulties and madness they endured for their country. It portrays the depth of emotions, the fears and the barbaric system of British military field discipline, a discipline so strict in its application that it drove men to the very edges of sanity and beyond. This book clearly paints a portrait of the system and the men who suffered under it. Many incidents are largely drawn from a composite of real events; even the trial where witnesses swore their oaths on a ‘handsomely bound French cookery book’, and the wild stories of Monsieur Cereox the undertaker — however bizarre they may seem, actually occurred.
However, at the Front, the digging continues, it is a terrible task deep in the bowels of the earth, hampered with cave-ins and the explosions that are raining down on the ground above them. In addition to these dangers the Germans are digging counter-tunnels, camouflets, and brief encounters with the enemy occur; deadly dark and bloody conflicts with shovels and trenching tools in the hot and airless confines of the excavations.
Eventually, when a massive cave-in occurs, the result of a German camouflet, killing one of Alex’s closest friends and several other men, two British soldiers refuse to go into the tunnel. They are arrested and charged with cowardice — a capital offence in the trenches. However, before they can be brought to trial the Germans suddenly counterattack and Madame Raimond’s farm is in danger of being overrun. Despite the possibility of being charged with desertion, Alex fulfils a promise he has made to Madame Raimond that in this eventuality he will do what he can to help her and her family. The German attack is repulsed but Alex is charged with leaving his post and taken with the two British soldiers to the notorious military training camp and stockade at Étaples. Here Alex is subjected to horrifying ordeals, including, beatings, crucifixion to a wagon-wheel, and other forms of physical torture — all accurate portrayals of such punishments as they were being inflicted upon British and colonial troops at that time.
The two soldiers with whom Alex is incarcerated know that they have only one option. They have been court-martialled, found guilty and the sentence of death has been passed. They must either await the execution of their sentences or escape from the prison compound. This they finally manage to do, taking a somewhat reluctant Alex with them. Alex lives in hiding for several months as the hunt for him continues. He is constantly moving from place to place, protected by Madame Raimond and her family and friends as the red-capped military police attempt to track him down. Alex learns to love the people who are protecting him, the village undertaker who takes Alex into his house and heart, and many others, including Madame Raimond's daughter, Lisle, whose fierce determination and pride will never allow Alex to go before a firing squad. Finally, at the end of the war, Alex finds it increasingly difficult to remain at large. As the war ends more troops are made available to hunt down absconders. Can Alex evade the mass of men searching for him or will he be captured, condemned and shot?
This story is designed to portray the warmth and human feelings of the men who fought on the Western Front and the difficulties and madness they endured for their country. It portrays the depth of emotions, the fears and the barbaric system of British military field discipline, a discipline so strict in its application that it drove men to the very edges of sanity and beyond. This book clearly paints a portrait of the system and the men who suffered under it. Many incidents are largely drawn from a composite of real events; even the trial where witnesses swore their oaths on a ‘handsomely bound French cookery book’, and the wild stories of Monsieur Cereox the undertaker — however bizarre they may seem, actually occurred.