Covenant with Death, John Harris
Covenant with Death, John Harris
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Covenant with Death

Author: John Harris

Narrator: Mike Rogers

Unabridged: 14 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/04/2014

Synopsis

They joined for their country. They fought for each other.

When war breaks out in 1914, Mark Fenner and his Sheffield friends immediately flock to Kitchener's call. Amid waving flags and boozy celebration, the three men - Fen, his best friend Locky and self-assured Frank, rival for the woman Fen loves - enlist as volunteers to take on the Germans and win glory.

Through ramshackle training in sodden England and a stint in arid Egypt, rebellious but brave Fen proves himself to be a natural leader, only undermined by on-going friction with Frank. Headed by terse, tough Sergeant Major Bold, this group of young men form steel-strong bonds, and yearn to face the great adventure of the Western Front.

Then, on one summer's day in 1916, Fen and his band of brothers are sent to the Somme, and this very ordinary hero discovers what it means to fight for your life.

Stirringly told from the down-to-earth view of everyday soldiers, Covenant with Death is acclaimed as one of the greatest novels about war ever written. Now with a new foreword by Louis de Bernières, author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

About John Harris

John Harris was born in 1916 and grew up in South Yorkshire. He became a journalist and worked for the Rotherham Advertiser and the Sheffield Telegraph, joining the RAF as a corporal attached to the South African Air Force during the Second World War and returning to journalism when the war ended. He became a full-time author after the success of his 1953 novel The Sea Shall Not Have Them, which was made into a film. He wrote more than eighty works of fiction and non-fiction, including books under pseudonyms Max Hennessy and Mark Hebden. As Hebden he created the crime series featuring Inspector Pel, which his daughter Juliet continued after his death in 1991.

Reviews

Goodreads review by John on July 03, 2016

John Harris was a Sheffield based crime writer who grew up listening to the veteran's stories he heard around the city. Among these were the stories of the survivors of the 12th Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment; the Sheffield Pals. This book is based on those stories. The Sheffield Pals......more

Goodreads review by Jean on September 28, 2014

My grandmother was born in Sheffield. I can remember my great grandmother and grandmother telling me stories of what happened to the City of Sheffield after the battle of the Somme in World War I. My maternal great uncle was a member of the Sheffield City Battalion (12th Battalion) York Regiment 94t......more

Goodreads review by Mike on April 01, 2020

If you can call a book excellent that breaks your heart, shows the folly of man as he lusts for war and power and immerses you in the human tragedy of combat, both for the military and civilians, then “Covenant With Death” is unbelievably excellent. Author Harris writes such a compelling story of or......more

Goodreads review by Stuart on March 10, 2016

A very enjoyable book, bringing home the clamour for war, followed by the expectation of glory that didn't survive it's encounter with reality before quickly turning to disillusionment and finally the grinding resignation that blighted a generation of young men during the First World War. The fact b......more

Quotes

Laden with knowledge yet sparely written, Covenant with Death is the work of an author immersed in the lives of those who fought The Times

The last line ought to be carved in stone somewhere . . . Find it. Read it. You'll be a better person for having done so Daily Mail

An anti-war book right up there with Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front Shorlist (The Greatest War Novels of All Time)

Covenant With Death . . . showed with unbearable actuality what happened to a newly formed Sheffield regiment on the first day of the battle of the Somme Guardian

The blood and guts, the nightmare stink of cordite . . . appalling realism The Times

A superb novel Daily Mirror

John Harris's neglected masterpiece of a novel, Covenant With Death, is the success that it is because it follows a group of Sheffield workers from their flag-waving sign-up to the hecatomb on the Somme The Atlantic

True and terrible Observer

An outstanding achievement Sunday Express

Only one novel about the war since 1945 has the power and feeling of veracity to compare with the works of the 1920s and 30s . . . Covenant with Death by John Harris The Western Front Organisation

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