Patterned after A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, this work of historical fiction is rooted in much historical fact and great detail. It follows four German infantrymen for one day as they fight the 1916 battle of Verdun. Jealously nicknamed “The Old Folks” by their comrades, because they have survived so well for so long, the “grunts,” as we would know them in today’s parlance, must perform death defying activities to continue surviving, much less kill the enemy.

One fearsome activity was making a run for water and grenades, staples of an infantryman’s life. Two men, simply running through “friendly” trenches, synchronize sprints across exposed areas to avoid incoming artillery shells, both friendly and unfriendly, passing through more trenches, locating the supplies, attempting to requisition them in spite of general shortages, and then reversing the process but with heavy loads, swinging from a tree branch on the their shoulders. Additionally, rains have flooded the trenches, washing away landmarks and eroding the trench walls and protection from enemy fire, with the duckboards lining the bottom of the trenches sinking into the mud underfoot. At one point, the supply team comes across a group of men vainly struggling to rescue a soldier from sinking into “the mud wolf’s mouth.” Men often did sink into the mud to drown and suffocate, fortunately this time, the supply team is using a tree limb that is long enough to aid the rescue effort and his comrades pull the man to safety—minus his pants and boots. The jaws of the mud wolf must be appeased.

Another episode concerns the reconnaissance effort of a battle-hardened sergeant with decades of experience who is addicted to the thrill of outsmarting the enemy, killing whenever possible or just surviving an artillery barrage. We enter his mind as he differentiates between flares and their “hang” time, the different sounds of “friendly” versus enemy machine guns and falling artillery shells, and his reactions to them.

The final chapter describes the post-war life of one survivor, suffering from what is now termed post-traumatic stress disorder. Years later he must travel to the funeral of Paul von Hindenburg, along with many other Imperial Army survivors. The description of the reunion and the tension due to the presence of Hitler’s SA is chilling as that outcome is too well known.

Read this book to learn how death could come in an instant and the small details a WWI grunt needed to know to survive. Learn the workings of a soldier’s mind as he defends himself from munitions, weather, and his own emotions. Read it to understand that even when the war ended, other ominous struggles began, both personal and national.

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Our Reviewer: Ron Drees is an archivist, retired from processing the collection of Dr. Michael DeBakey, the world-famous cardiologist at the Baylor College of Medicine. His interest in history dates back to junior high school with an emphasis on American military history, particularly the Civil and World Wars. He has written several reviews for Michael Hanlon's blog "Roads to the Great War", about the catastrophe that still shapes the world. His favorite WWI book is Margaret MacMillan’s Paris, 1919 which tells how the tragedy was compounded by setting the stage for even greater misery. He lives in Houston with his wife of 42 years, Lin, a retired librarian, and their Sheltie, Hannah. He had a grandfather who was a teamster on the German side in WWI, his first boss had been a Marine at Iwo Jima, virtually the only survivor of his company, and his brother-in-law had been at Inchon. Ron’s previous reviews include Imperial Germany and War, 1871-1918, Beneath the Killing Fields: Exploring the Subterranean Landscapes of the Western Front, Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy, Between Mutiny and Obedience: The Case of the French Fifth Infantry Division during World War, The Kaiser’s U-Boat Assault on America, This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing, 1918: Winning the War, Losing the War, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside of Northern France After the Great War, A Mad Catastrophe, Verdun: The Lost History of the Most Important Battle of World War I, July, 1914: Countdown to War, Dreadnought, Toward the Flame, A Memoir of World War I, The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War, and G. H. Q. (Montreuil-Sur-Mer)

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