The book falls into three chapters. In the first, the (Fictionalised) Raymond recounts how with his younger brother Claude, he joins the Resistance and spends nine months shooting German soldiers and Vichy officials, blowing up factories, and sabotaging German supplies – by, for example, slipping sand and molasses into fuel-tankers.
Though in outline this is familiar material, the author adds some fresh gloss. One surprise is how heavily the French Resistance relied on foreigners, seeking sanctuary from Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy or the advancing Nazi armies. Another is the youth of the fighters: Raymond was 18, Claude 17, the average age of their cell 20 or 21. All those adolescent hormones, and a more or less even mix of sexes, made the atmosphere feverish, fear of capture and hatred of the enemy mixing with barely suppressed lust.
The second part describes the six months Raymond spent in prison, on starvation rations and facing the prospect of the firing squad. The third takes him criss-crossing France in a train destined for Dachau, as the Allied armies fought through Normandy.
This journey includes moments of scarcely believable optimism: as when Raymond, peering out of the truck, exchanged glances with an RAF pilot flying at treetop level alongside the train.
