Nearly 420,000 Australians enlisted during the First World War, and more than half were killed, wounded or captured. The conflict was the most costly in Australia's history. In the fates of his protagonists in his acclaimed Flesh in Armour - one dies valiantly, one dies in an abject and mentally unhinged state, one survives - Mann pays tribute to the sacrifices of his countrymen and reminds readers of the unforgiving test of character found in war then and now.