Pnnd Hall's Progress

This novel, combining romance and tragedy, is largely set in rural Suffolk. The central character, Dick Brundish, born in 1890, son of an elderly farmer, returns from serving with the Royal Field Artillery in Italy (the involvement of British troops on this front is overlooked by many). He brings with him a young wife, called Teresa, that he's met while recovering from injury in Faenza, Emilia-Romagna. The two of them start a family and Dick works to follow in his father's footsteps as the principle farmer of the local community. The agricultural economy, however, is precarious and Dick’s life slowly descends into debt and drunkenness.

The author, Harold Webber Freeman (born 28 March 1899), known as Jack, was born in Ilford, Essex. During his time as a student in Oxford, he went to the Western Front as a second lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry. On his return, he completed a classics degree. After a few years of teaching in the Midlands, he left for the continent to concentrate on a literary career. His first novel, written while staying in Italy, was published in 1928 and was followed by several other novels set in rural Suffolk. Although not of farming stock, his father had in retirement run a small poultry farm in Suffolk. He married his German wife in 1940 and they settled in rural Suffolk. He also wrote several books of travelogue.

The central character, Dick Brundish, is wounded a week before the Armistice, he being the only man wounded when a stray Austrian shell fell upon his battery.  While recovering in a convalescent camp, he reflects on his experience in Italy:
“France at least bore some resemblance to his native Suffolk, which, in the first instance, he had enlisted to defend, but here in Italy he felt he was fighting for a foreign country and saw dimly at last that the war was really nothing more than a machine to which he had become enslaved, doing his duty efficiently because there was nothing else to be done.”
Prior to serving in Italy, he had been on the Western Front. While on leave, he tells a friend:
“What do we want with the bloody war? Here have I been a-killing Jerries for close on three years, with a lot of damned officers and sergeant-majors a-telling me to do this and that, and the end no nearer yet! And all them years I might ha' been on the farm a-doing a man's work. We know I laugh and say I'm having a good time. Blast that and to hell with the bloody war, I say!"