On a cold May morning in 1940, Adrian Vincent arrived in France with his battalion. His war didn't last long. Within five days the Siege of Calais was over and nearly all his comrades were killed, wounded or, like him, taken prisoner. After a brutal journey across the breadth of Germany, Vincent and his fellow survivors began their life in Stalag VIIIB, set to work in terrible conditions down a Polish mine. For the next five years they waged a war not against enemy soldiers, but instead versus monotony, disease, cruelty, starvation and hopelessness. "The most honest prisoner-of-war story I have read in the last ten years." "Mr. Vincent has the admirable intention of entertaining the reader, and this he does very successfully. His style is deft and concise. He has a nice wit and his characters emerge as life-like and life-size figures" "Vincent tells his story with humour, sympathy and observation." is a remarkably truthful memoir of what it was like to be a prisoner during the Second World War. Vincent does not portray himself or his comrades as heroes, but instead what they really were: survivors.