Called "Mowat's finest work" by Time Magazine, he shares his own personal war story of his experience in Italy during the invasion of WWII. Candid and honest in his observations, he shares both the absurdities and horrors of war in such a captivating account that the reader feels as though he is walking along side him at times. One would never know, from his other works, that he had endured such an ordeal and seen such horrors.