A Brave Soldier

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

It is 1914, the beginning of World War I. A young Canadian named Frank
volunteers to become a soldier because all his friends are signing up
and he does not want them to think he is a coward. Frank and his friends
are shipped off to England. After six months of rain-soaked training
they are so miserable, they are actually glad to be told they are
finally going to face the enemy. As they trudge toward the German front,
they encounter a long line of exhausted French-African soldiers. “What
is it like up there?” asks Michael, Frank’s best friend. “It is
terrible. It’s like hell,” is the reply. Frank and his friends soon
find out that the French soldiers were speaking the truth. Herded into
stinking waterlogged trenches, they wait out their time in squalor until
they are finally ordered to attack. Frank is lucky: he is badly wounded,
but he survives. His best friend Michael and many of his hometown
comrades are dead.

By Hollywood movie standards, the title would be an ironic one. Frank
performs no great feat of heroism. He wins no medals. He is just one of
millions of soldiers who endured the unspeakable horrors of war in the
name of king and country. What Nicolas Debon manages to convey in
elegant prose is that true heroism lays in the fortitude of ordinary
soldiers like Frank. Equally poignant are Debon’s earth-toned pastel
illustrations. This is an exceptionally insightful and honest book about
war. Highly recommended.