Walking straight out of Edwardian drawing rooms into the manifest horrors of the First World War, the volunteer nurses rose magnificently to the occasion. In leaking tents they fought another war, a war against agony and death. This book captures a panorama of hardship, disillusion and despair, and also of endurance and supreme courage.
The tale is allowed to tell itself without any frontal assault on the emotions, and is all the more stirring thereby
Lyn Macdonald is one of the most highly regarded historians of the First World War. Her books tell the men's stories in their own words and cast a unique light on the experiences of the ordinary 'Tommy'. The Roses of No Man's Land, Somme and They Called it Passchendaele have been recently reissued by Penguin. She lives near Cambridge.