Cowan describes the development during the 1940s of Hungerford's narrative technique in the short story. The themes and techniques of many of these stories were also employed in Hungerford's novels, a form which offered "the greater space and freedom that his style and themes demanded". The harshness of war, the similarities between enemies and the possibility that war produces no winners were all explored in short stories before being used in The Ridge and the River and Sowers of the Wind.