The 'farm school' system, jointly sponsored by the Australian and British governments, encouraged World War II orphans to be sent by ship to Australia to start a new life under the now-notorious Assisted Passages scheme.
Survival is the shared mantra of the disparate collection of characters who inhabit this novel. From Brigadier Giles Perbright (a latter day Wackford Squeers) to Jack Cooper, a Sapper who made it back...