A Fine Mourning

A Fine Mourning
ISBN: 9781922238207
Publication Date: 18 June 2018

War! A splendid game. Wailing bugles, clashing swords, thrusting steeds, the gritty flavour of saltpetre . . . Alas, no more! Not since captured by science and industry, and railway timetables. This time, legions are butchered on a scale unimagined, the survivors scourged and scarred forever. A generation sacrificed to chauvinism. Many welcomed it. At first. In sitting rooms and salons, from London to Constantinople, hatred and hubris flourished. A necessary cleansing, it was said - a brief, violent storm to settle too many overheated seasons of dynastic feuding and political chicanery. Arrogance, bigotry, sanctimony . . . Theatre! The world its stage. The characters: a folly of creaking monarchies and musty aristocracies. Synopsis Joe West is an educated man, a reluctant leader who enjoyed anonymity until he performed a courageous act at Gallipoli. Since arriving in France he has had to come to terms with his fear and hatred of the War, but also a vague, terrible frisson he experiences during battle. Harry is a big man, a loner, and from an impoverished background. He is consumed by guilt arising from the accidental killing of his disabled brother shortly before enlistment. Stan, by contrast, was raised in affluence. At 19 he is the youngest of the three Australians. His innocence is particularly tested in an environment no man should have to experience. Joe falls in love with a nurse who works in an English Asylum. They meet during a brief leave when Joe and Harry visit a shell shocked comrade. The parallels between the world of the Asylum and the world at war are all too apparent. When the two men return to France and re-unite with Stan they find themselves struggling through the harshest winter in fifty years. But with Spring comes a tougher test. An overly ambitious General is planning a 'demonstration' against Germany's vaunt...