Cirrus@Austlit

'They were men afraid. men desperate. Patient. Exhausted. Half mad. They were the remnants of the Fifty-Fifth.

'The Germans thought that Egypt was theirs. All that stood in their way was the exhausted Eighth Army huddled in the gap between the Quattara Depression and the Mediterranean. But just before Montgomery's immortal attack at Alamein, an Australian infantry battalion was ordered into an action that would ordinarily have been given to a brigade.

'The Fifty-Fifth Division were thrown in to lure German tanks away from the fighting that would result in the successful Allied campaign ending in the Battle of El Alamein.

'A fast-paced tale that takes us into the seedy depths of war-torn Cairo, this powerful novel tells the story of the doomed Fifty-Fifth, a battalion so severely mauled, they were virtually extinct.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Head of Zeus ed.)

'They are the veterans of the North African desert campaign, home for three weeks' leave after three long years at war – time to find the brothels, the black markets, the racketeers and the dollar-happy Yank servicemen.

'When a faceless madman in the War Office throws them into the shell-torn beaches, mountain trails and steaming jungles of New Guinea, they become creatures of the mud; walking skeletons racked with malaria. There are thousands of them.

'In the throes of battle, black clouds billow about the destroyers in the distance, piercing the darkness with savage explosions. In a merciless system of mutual slaughter, they must draw on every last ounce of their strength for a chance of survival against the raging fires of war, the endless jungle and the brutal enemy that lies within it.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Head of Zeus ed.)

'Their officers called them a stinking, lazy, drunken rabble and their friends said they took the colonel prisoner, burnt down their officers' mess and drove off the military police with heavy rifle-fire. This is the unforgettable story of the gallant men of the A.I.F.: the fearless and fatalistic Diggers of the Western Desert.

'Twenty thousand men were on their way to the deserts of Egypt and Libya: some had joined up for adventure, some were on the run from the police, for others, the army meant three meals a day and a bed to sleep in. From an induction camp in Australia to the siege of Tobruk, the savage intensity of Second X Battalion's experiences is not for the faint hearted. How soon will death silence so many of these brave voices and how many will ring out beyond the brutality of the battlefield?'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Head of Zeus ed.)