A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire

A first-person collection of on-the-spot drawings and annotations recounts a soldier's journey from embarkation through Mediterranean stops to the front, pairing travel and camp scenes with vivid trench sketches. It describes daily routines, improvisations, camaraderie, sniper encounters, death traps, bombardments and episodes of enemy brutality, including a violated convent, alongside lighter moments such as makeshift concerts and practical jokes. Plates and map sketches illustrate billets, bivouacs, periscopes, dugouts and local towns, while brief captions and retrospective notes emphasize immediacy, restraint, and the author's effort to record what he saw rather than invent drama.