A profoundly moving and unforgettable story of the loss of innocence and the despair of a generation doomed to the killing fields of the Somme.
The story begins just before the outbreak of the First World war, when young, spinsterish Beatrice arrives to take up a teaching job in the tiny community of Ecclesden Halt, tucked beneath the South Downs. Almost instantly, she falls in love with the landowner's effete and unreliable son, Charles Tremain, and soon becomes entangled, not only in Charles' difficult relationship with his childhood soul-mate Eric, but with the feuds, superstitions and tensions that surround the chalk quarries.
