Laurie Lee describes the winter leading to the Republican Army's defeat in the Spanish Civil War, in a tragi-comic account of rivalries and ribaldries in the ranks He and his fellow volunteers were bored, bruised and baffled by a war they did not understand Escaping execution three times, Lee was a victim of Eulalia, a young partisan who eased his macabre misfortunes This is an account of youthful idealism, of wanting to make 'one grand gesture of personal sacrifice and faith'