No Man's Land

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
the author of Military Archives: International Directory of Military
Publications and The Bantams: The Untold St

The first day of the Battle of the Somme—a bloody catastrophe that
cost the British army 20,000 soldiers (272 of them from
Newfoundland)—serves as the canvas for this outstanding novel. Major
writes with a pleasing economy. He is particularly good at portraying
the young Newfoundland men who volunteered for military service and set
off from their island colony in a spirit of careless patriotism. There
is no spurious revisionism here. Major tells his story matter-of-factly,
in the authentic voice of 1916—a technique that captures the nobility,
innocence, and tragedy of the sacrifice more forcefully than could any
number of fashionable “war is hell” clichés. (One minor quibble:
the cover blurb states that the Newfoundland Regiment suffered the most
casualties that first day—when, in fact, the West Yorkshire Regiment
had that grim distinction.)

No Man’s Land is a moving and unpretentious tribute to those valiant
“First of July Men” from Newfoundland who marched bravely to their
doom on the Somme.