Cover of Somme stations

Book 2011

Somme stations

4 readers

Publisher
Faber & Faber
Language
English
Published
2011
  • Fiction
  • Railroad police

On the first day of the Somme, enlisted railwayman Jim Stringer lies trapped in a shell hole, smoking cigarette after cigarette under the bullets and the blazing sun. He calculates his chances of survival. During the stand-off that follows, Jim and his comrades must operate by night the vitally important trains carrying munitions to the Front, through a ghostly landscape of shattered trees where high explosive and shrapnel shells rain down.