Three Women and the River

Opening in the final months of World War I and ending with the prelude to World War II, the novel is set primarily in the flood plain of the Piave River, north of Venice, Italy. It also offers a glimpse of life in Royal Tunbridge Wells ¿ a city that once epitomized the British middle class. Actual historical figures, including Rudyard Kipling, Ernest Hemingway and Benito Mussolini, play dramatic roles in the life of Reginald Olcutt, Lance Corporal in the most celebrated unit of the...
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Opening in the final months of World War I and ending with the prelude to World War II, the novel is set primarily in the flood plain of the Piave River, north of Venice, Italy. It also offers a glimpse of life in Royal Tunbridge Wells ¿ a city that once epitomized the British middle class. Actual historical figures, including Rudyard Kipling, Ernest Hemingway and Benito Mussolini, play dramatic roles in the life of Reginald Olcutt, Lance Corporal in the most celebrated unit of the WWI British Army, the 11th Battalion of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment. The novel begins when Reg is wounded, separated from his unit and rescued by a local family. The second section retraces his two-year journey from enlistment to the opening scenes, through diary entries, letters home and dispatches. The third part picks up the story back in Italy, where Reg is nursed to health, only to be captured by the Germans, then set free during the Battle of the Piave in June, 1918. He is arrested for desertion by British Troops and he sent back to England to stand court martial, facing execution by firing squad. A fourth section chronicles Reg's difficulty with his British family and the pending court martial. Helped by Kipling, who has read the young soldier's letters home and diary entries, Reg is exonerated and promised a career as a writer, to be mentored by Kipling. Reg's heart pulls him back to Gabby, the woman he has fallen in love with. But Gabriella's husband has come home from the war, and by the time he reaches her in the fifth section, her husband has returned from the war and she is pregnant. As secrets of provincial families reveal themselves, death and greed threaten Reg and everyone he cares for, leading to another life and death confrontation at river's edge. In an epilogue, set in 1936, Reg hopes to convince his stepson about the real price and folly of war.