As a boy living through round the clock bombing of London during the Blitz and waking to the sound of an incendiary bomb crashing through the roof of our house left an impression. Also witnessing from a village green the progress of a Battle of Britain dogfight is hard to forget. Being one of many thousands of evacuee children taking part in a mass exodus from the towns and villages of a country under threat of invasion has never left me. My recollections of those days, a lifelong interest in military history and two years spent in the British army has equipped me with a detailed knowledge of the routines and practices of the armed services. Suffice to say on such subjects my personal experience has helped in the writing of this book, but the text of my novel is entirely a work of fiction as are the characters a product of my imagination. Writing about the activities of republican and paramilitary groups of Ireland, I am reminded of the 1955 IRA raid on Arborfield Depot in England. When ordered to secure the windows of our barrack-room we were asked if there were any of us Irish? Surrounded by a circle of pointing fingers it seemed my birth certificate was in need of correction and if you had an Irish name you had to be from the Emerald Isle. Having never belonged to a clandestine organization I was taken by surprise when questioned on the night of the raid. However, little time was spent on quizzing me before I returned to the spit and polish routines required to turn civilians into soldiers.