Somme stations
By: Andrew Martin
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2011
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 287
ISBN-13: 9780571249602
Subjects: Fiction; Somme, 1st Battle of the, France, 1916; Jim Stringer (Fictitious character); Railroad police
Description: 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.