Susan Hill's classic novel Strange Meeting tells of the power of love amidst atrocities' He was afraid to go to sleep For three weeks he had been afraid of going to sleep ' Young officer John Hilliard returns to his battalion in France following a period of sick leave in England Despite having trouble adjusting to all the new faces the stiff & reserved Hilliard forms a friendship with David Barton an open & cheerful new recruit who has still to be bloodied in battle As the pair approach the front line to the proximity of death & destruction their strange friendship deepens But each knows that soon they will be separated 'A remarkable feat of imaginative & descriptive writing' The Times' The feeling of men under appalling stress at a particular moment in history is communicated with almost uncanny power' Sunday Times' Truly Astonishing' Daily Telegraph