Fifth in the author's six-volume trilogy on life in the rank and file during the Second World War He is sent from the front to a psychiatric hospital and then on to Afragola, a camp for bomb-happy soldiers This khaki limbo away from active service gives him a chance to regroup mentally in his own private war against melancholy as well as the public one against brass hats Music, zany humour and the friendship of the 'blubber of fat from Wales' help to carry him through