Robert Edric has almost thirty novels to his name, a couple of which have been long-listed for The Booker Prize, and yet I rarely see much chatter about him or his work. This is the first of his I’ve read, finally deciding to take it off my shelves; it was an unsolicited copy sent by the publisher ten years ago.

Field Service (2012) is an interesting side-step in the more trodden Great War stories; instead of trenches being dug, it’s cemeteries. Set two years after the war, and in northern France, the novel follows the activity of the men left behind to recovery and bury their fallen colleagues.

Chief among them is Captain Reid, war weary but with time still to serve. He’s a man in the middle, commanding many men, but commanded himself by those up the ladder. What’s crucial is that’s he’s boots on the ground; those above are desk jockeys. To him the dead are people with names; to his superiors, numbers.

The story, what there is anyway, sees the winding down of the cemetery, with Reid getting news that preparations are underway for the burial of some nurses. That they are women adds poignancy, but also allows pageantry as the powers intend to use this opportunity to control the narrative back home, far from the reality of mass graves. 

What is noticeable about Edric’s approach to historical fiction here is how he captures the period without shoehorning in detail to pad or justify research. There’s no schematic minutiae of machinery; no excruciating period details. He’s rightly focused on his characters, observing their interactions and frustrations. And it’s very much a meditative affair as the action finished in 1918 and all that’s left is to contemplate what just happened and hope – with dramatic irony – that it never happens again.