Arras, 1917: A Journey to Railway Triangle

This is the true and poignant account of a young Scottish officer, pinned down and fatally wounded in No-man's land on the first day of the Battle of Arras, on Easter Monday 1917. The gripping narrative creates a mood of sombre inevitability. It does not simply set out the events of Captain Ernest Reid's life, but puts Ernest's life into its moral as well as its historical context and describes the cultural influences - the code of duty, an unquestioning patriotism - that moulded him and his contemporaries for service and sacrifice in the killing fields of France and Flanders.

In retrospect, he and they seem almost programmed for the role they were required to play, and in this lies the pathos at the heart of this moving book.