« The Irish Guards trench»
After reading witness accounts of writers who had lived the First World War, I felt that I did not have the right to start putting together a fiction dealing with this sacred period. I am also a passionate reader of Kipling’s work, one of which accounts for British soldiers holding the trenches in the Somme in 1916. I was given by Kipling a heavily moving story, as well as his moral support, remembering that he lost his John, a lieutenant in the Irish Guards, reported missing in action during the battle of Loos. I adapted his short book.
We owe Kipling this inscription that is written onto the unknown British soldiers graves :
« Known unto God ».