On the first day of the Somme enlisted railwayman Jim Stringer lies trapped in a shell hole smoking cigarette after cigarette under the bullets & the blazing sun. He calculates his chances of survival
- even before they departed for France a member of Jim's unit had been found dead. During the st&-off that follows Jim & his comrades must operate by night the vitally important trains carrying munitions to the Front through a ghostly landscape of shattered trees where high explosive & shrapnel shells rain down. Close co-operation & trust are vital. Yet proof piles up of an enemy within & as a ferocious military policeman pursues his investigation into the original killing the finger of accusation begins to point towards Jim himself...