From the author of the Governor General’s Award—finalist The Damned comes the riveting true story of Canadian POWs in the First World War
“The Reckoning interweaves Great War battles with grim POW life into a readable, engrossing, at times funny tale of determination, hope and bloody-minded stubbornness.” —Maclean’s
Nearly a hundred years have passed since the end of the First World War, but fascination with the conflict is never-ending. In The Reckoning, bestselling author and Governor General’s Award—nominee Nathan M. Greenfield explores life and death in the camps as well as the attempts to run for freedom. Readers are taken into the camps, where conditions were generally vile. Soldiers had little to eat but thin soup and putrid meat. Canadian men were used as slave labourers in salt mines and coal mines, and those who refused the work were beaten. Any soldiers thought to have engaged in sabotage were beaten and tortured, and some were murdered. Hundreds tried to escape using a variety of ingenious methods. Some even succeeded. These are the forgotten stories of our soldiers at war and in the camps, and of how they never gave up hope of making it out alive.
From the Governor General’s Award finalist for The Damned comes the riveting true story of Canadian POWs in the First World War.
In The Reckoning, bestselling author Nathan M. Greenfield explores life and death in POW camps as well as prisoners’ attempts to run for freedom. These are the forgotten stories of our soldiers at war and in the camps, and of how they never gave up hope of making it out alive and rejoining their comrades in the trenches.
Conditions in German POW camps were generally vile, with soldiers having little to eat other than thin soup and putrid meat. Canadian men were used as slave labourers in salt mines and coal mines, and those who refused the work were beaten. Soldiers thought to have engaged in sabotage were beaten and tortured, and some were murdered. Hundreds of POWs attempted escape, a few more than once, using ingenious and dangerous methods. One soldier attempted to escape by secreting himself in a wicker basket, while another dressed as a widow. Others—hearty frontiersmen—did escape, making their way out of Germany by hiding in forests and ditches and using magnetized razor blades as compasses.
In preserving these stories of endurance, bravery and defiance, Greenfield adds another important chapter to Canada’s military history.
“History lies in the detail, and the accomplished Nathan Greenfield provides a rich, granular helping. A subject few of us have contemplated--the punishment suffered by Canadian POWs during the Great War--becomes an engrossing read as a result. This is a good book.”
