Based on the true story recently filmed as operation mincemeat this brilliant novel by Duff Cooper who was actively involved in the plan is an imagining of the life of the 'man who never was'.
Willie is the central character, who is orphaned in ww1 but is determined to fight but in enlisting in the latter days of 1918 after he turns 18 the armistice, to his dissatisfaction comes to soon for him to see action.
The rest of his life is one lived under that shadow and as ww2 arrives he is too old to be sent by his regiment back to the battlefields.
This is a wonderfully imagined and moving tale and have a tissue ready for Felicity's letter at the end .