Christopher J Harvie
Author Bio
I began writing military history in earnest in 2011, starting with my blog “If Ye Break Faith.” Following this, I’ve had a few fine successes in other publications. I have brought to all of this work not only a passion for the subject matter and a desire to impart it in a revealing and relatable way; my five years with the Canadian Army has given me an attention to detail and an insider’s understanding of the military. This has been useful in illustrating some of the “why’s” not immediately understood to the civil mindset, as well as an intimate knowledge of the nuances of military tradition and how soldiers genuinely interact with each other. All these elements have been put to task in telling the grittily realistic story of “Killing is a Sin.”
Description
Moments before the men of Six Platoon ‘B’ Company, King’s Own Canadian Scots Regiment will go forward to assault Vimy Ridge, each one of them must reconcile themselves to their probable fate. Felix Strachan, a teen-aged corporal about to lead his men into battle, has already seen a lot of this war; its arbitrary cruelty to life. In the past eight months he’s been fighting in France, he’s lost friends and a little of his faith in mankind, though nothing has bothered him more than the death of a stranger- a transferred officer left on the field after a failed patrol. Not only can no one seem to remember who the officer was, his death may not have been at the enemy’s hands. Felix, in the seconds before Zero hour tries to come to terms with a question he has held for as long as he can remember- “What does it mean to die well?”
This book uses the extreme human experience of war to explore ideas of morality within a historically correct, visceral and realistic narrative. I have, in order to achieve this, relied upon my strength as an essayist and lecturer on the history of the First World War, as well as my own service with the Canadian Army.
Book excerpt
Before him was something at once as familiar as it was strange. A shallow valley played out into the distance, reaching the cotton flecked azure sky in gentle rolls, only interrupted by a hillock overgrown with trees just that much darker than the grass around it. This, stretching out beyond the range one pair of eyes could see, no one had tended, so it looked after itself. The long stalks were tufted with crowns of seed waiting to take flight on the honey-sweet breeze to begin anew. Such a current carved rifts in the singular green, played them this way and that, surprising with flashes of red where the randomness of Creation had stood the flowers, it seemed, wherever it pleased them. With such a deep and rich hue, velvet and radiant, why wouldn’t they be pleased with themselves? They had accomplished, in just being themselves more beauty than many things could only hope for in a lifetime. It was a bit of a shock, then, when the boot came down and crushed one of these flowers at the stalk. So shocking, disturbing the vista, that he didn’t realise at first that the boot belonged to him; almost unrecognisable as such, the worn leather was wrapped in strips of hessian cloth cut from old sandbags. The shape was perverted into irregularity with clots of mud, soaked black by a viscous sludge of water and filth- all the filth of the world. Now, pinning the trampled beauty of the flower underfoot, the muck flowed outward from where he stood, the grass withering silently where it touched that in moments the scene was gone, replaced by a lifelessness in the lustreless parched shade of old rusty-brown photographs.
His attention wavered from the field to a distant, yet definite sensation of a boot pressing against the small of his back. Lightly but deliberately nudging, the soft kicks made Felix aware that the valley was receding like he was being removed from a picture which he had never actually seen. As he turned over, he found Corporal Norton leaning over him, blocking the light.
“C’mon, Catscratch, time to get up and earn your pay.”
“A buck fifteen? Keep it, Nort. In fact, I will pay you five dollars to let me sleep another twenty minutes.”
“Tempting, but it’s really not up to me. Sarn’t Major says you’ve gotta see the Captain.”
“The Captain? What for?” He sat up now, still a bit bleary, took his helmet off with one hand, scratching the matted crop of his hair with the other.
“Didn’t tell me. Mind, not that anyone ever does. Maybe something about that dead officer.”
“Collier?”
‘That was his name?”
Felix nodded “Guess you heard already.”
“Awful, ain’t it, doing something that mindless first time out? At least he did us a favour in not getting the rest of you killed while he was at it. Got himself out of the way before he’d have a chance to get anybody killed, you ask me.”
Book Cover https://everywritersresource.com/selfpublished/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/51O8tjYBpWL.jpg
Genre Fiction
Author Website
http://ifyebreakfaith.blogspot.ca/
