One man. One love. One war. He must leave her to fight. Duty calls. After three years' service in the British Army, Private Samuel Ogden travels to France at the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Fianc e Alice is left in the village, marriage on hold. But Havercake Lad is not a love story.

It is a gritty tale of daily life as a rifleman in frontline fighting. Based on official military records, this novel plots many of the war's key characters, events and battles. Samuel Ogden is fiction. But the heroic activities of Havercake Lads, men of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, 2nd Battalion, are based firmly on fact. Steve Ellis explores the trauma of war, the psychology of soldier-killing and the personal consequences of being constantly surrounded by casualties and corpses.