A story by George Godwin!
Synopsis:
A recent (autumn 2003) review in “Canadian Military History” has called Why Stay We Here? ‘arguably the finest Canadian novel of the First World War.’
Desmond Morton, one of Canada’s most respected historians on World War I, (author of “When Your Number’s Up”) has this to say about “Why Stay we Here?”: “This book is the testimony of a profoundly sensitive and observant man, caught in a Hell of inhumanity and kept there by his allegiance to the values of the old-fashioned world of his youth.”
Why Stay We Here?, the sequel to The Eternal Forest, was first published in 1930 and soon went out of print. It remained out of print until I republished it in 2002. This book follows Stephen Craig (Godwin himself) as he makes his way back to England and signs up to fight in World War I. Having spent several years in Dresden in his youth Godwin has no anti-German bias. His motive for joining the fight is purely economic; homesteading in British Columbia had led to poverty.
See the following clip for a reading of some passages from Why Stay We Here?
Ross Bay clip Reflections on Armistice Day and the War-wounded (7 min. special, produced by Shaw TV, Victoria, BC) http://youtu.be/A6fIQSku1Zw
Warfleet Press 
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