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"The summer of 1913 sees four young men making plans to change their lives. Jean-Baptiste leaves his home to seek his fortune in Paris. Frank arrives in London to take up an apprenticeship in Regent Street. Benedict, a Gloucester organ scholar, is troubled by God. Harry has turned his back on his wealthy English family, has a business in New York and a beautiful American wife. Three years later, on the first of July 1916, their lives have taken an unexpected direction. Now in uniform they are waiting for dawn on the battlefield of the Somme. Each man is accompanied by regrets, fears and secrets."--Publisher description.
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At break of day
2014, Magna Large Print Books
in English
- [Large print edition].
0750538775 9780750538770
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Book Details
Edition Notes
Standard print edition originally published: London : Virago, 2013.
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On the 1 July, 1913, meet four very different men leading four very different lives: Frank has secured an apprenticeship with Debenhams in London's Regent Street. Now all that he needs to crown his progress is a bicycle and a wife. Benedict is an organist at Gloucester cathedral, with fellow-pupils Ivor Gurney and Ivor Novello. Benedict has synaesthesia - he hears in colour - is uncertain about God, women and his oldest friend, Tom. Jean-Batiste is the fifteen-year-old of a Picardy widow. He makes plans for the day when he will row up-river to the coast and then to England. Meanwhile, he runs errands for the philandering local doctor, Vignon, whose stories he only half believes. Harry is the heir to a baronetcy. Estranged from his family, he has a successful life in New York and is engaged to be married. After eight years abroad he considers himself an American but has never quite persuaded himself to change nationality. 1 July 1916. Exactly three years later, it is just after seven in the morning, there are a few seconds of peace as the guns on the Somme fall silent and larks soar, singing over the trenches. What follows is a day of utter catastrophe in which British casualties number nearly 60,000. A horror that would have been unimaginable in pre-war England, France and America, becomes a day of reckoning for Frank, Benedict, Jean-Batiste and Harry.
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