Under Fire

"Under Fire: The Story of a Squad," a novel based on Henri Barbusse's own experience in World War I, is a powerful account of one of the greatest horrors mankind has inflicted on itself. For the group of ordinary men in the French Sixth Battalion, thrown together from all over France and longing for home, war was simply a matter of survival, lightened only by the arrival of their rations or a glimpse of a pretty girl or a brief reprieve in the hospital. Reminiscent of classics like Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, "Under Fire: The Story of a Squad" (which was originally published in French as "La Feu) vividly evokes life in the trenches-the mud, stench, and monotony of waiting while constantly fearing for one's life in an infernal and seemingly eternal battlefield.