The Long and the Short - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

The Long and the Short is the second in Allen Saddler's trilogy set in and around the Second World War. It's 1944, and Jimmy is a raw recruit in Chester, reunited with former colleague, the Jewess Rosa, now a nurse tending German prisoners of war. Charlie, her lover of one night and father of her baby boy, also fetches up in the northern camp, cultivating the persona of 'Daft Charlie' to avoid the perils of active service. We also meet spivvy Harry 'Boy' Fortune, batman and fixer to Major Le Surf - an honourable if dim man who has carved out a pleasant enough life in this northern backwater collecting antiques and giving local widows false hope of romance. However, his platoon of plodding misfits, the unwilling dregs of the British Army, find themselves thrust into the centre of the mayhem that follows: the violent death of a German prisoner and the random murder of a hapless American GI unfortunate enough to encounter a pair of malevolent squaddies... These dramas and more converge as the country moves towards VE Day.
In these novels the author has created a cast of resolutely non-heroic characters and gives the reader vivid insight into wartime existence. Faced with bombings and the threat of invasion, they try to stay cheerful and 'make do', work grinding hours, cope with rationing and the call-up and long for the day when Hitler will be defeated and normal life will be resumed.

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