Set in France during World War l, No Man's Land pulls us into the lives of the young men of the Newfoundland Regiment as they prepare to set out for the trenches and what will come to be known as the Battle of the Somme. A classic war novel, the book is equally effective in its portrayal of the camaraderie and unnatural quiet before the storm, as in its graphic acccount of the fight to make it through the barbed wire and sweep of machine-gun bullets. Two hundred and seventy-two Newfoundlanders who went over the top on July 1, 1916 were killed. No regiment suffered more casualties. It was the single greatest disaster in the island's history.