The challenge of the dead : A vision of the war and the life of the common soldier in France, seen two years afterwards between August and November, 1920

The book opens on a bright, wind‑tossed day at Zeebrugge, where the sea crashes against a long stone mole studded with silent German guns. The author wanders the same stretch that once carried the Seventh Division ashore, observing schoolchildren, nuns, and tourists against a backdrop of hulking hydro‑plane sheds and sun‑drenched breakwater. Through vivid detail the scene shifts from the bustling waterfront to the peaceful, cobbled streets of Bruges, where the bells of the Belfry toll a contemplative “Rosary,” inviting the listener to pause and feel the lingering weight of the recent conflict.

From this present‑day viewpoint the narrative threads together the experiences of ordinary soldiers who marched, fought, and fell across a chain of battles—from Zeebrugge to Ypres, Neuve Chapelle, the Somme, and beyond. Their stories are presented as a relay of memory, a torch passed from one weary foot to the next, offering a poignant glimpse into the everyday courage and loss that defined the war’s early years.