At the Going Down of the Sun

It is the summer of 1914 and Rex Sheridan is the first of the three brothers home to Tarrant Hall.  Rex had ambitions in aviation, but his father had sent him to university to get a degree. Roland, the eldest, arrived the following day.  He was studying to become a surgeon.  Two days later the youngest brother, Chris, came home, despite having told everyone he was headed to Greece.  He has plans of attending Cambridge in the fall.

A few days later, they received a telegram that their father had committed suicide.  Roland was now head of the family.  It was the same day that Archduke Ferdinand was killed by a Serbian student.

The death of their father brings reality to the three boys.  Roland as head of the family decides to give up his studies, while he and Rex decide that Chris must go on to university.  However, those plans are kiboshed when it is revealed that Chris has made Marion, the daughter of the local doctor, pregnant.  They are to get married as a result.

On the day of the wedding, Rex shows up in uniform.  He has joined the R. F. C.  It wasn’t until February 1915 that Rex would make it to France.  He soon learned of the dangers of flying and the loss of friends in battle.

To get away from a wife and child he didn’t want, Chris tries to join the army.  However, his poor eyesight excludes him.  He learns the eye chart by memory and goes to a different recruiting station and manages to get in.  However, his poor eyesight lands him in trouble.  Fortunately, that leads him to a promotion and an attachment to the Intelligence Corps.  He only tells Rex where he is.

Roland continues to run Tarrant Hall, growing food to help with the war effort.  Despite that, and offering part of the hall for recuperating officers, the locals began to shun him.  He also began to receive white feathers in the mail, a sign of cowardice.

Due to Chris’ intelligent capabilities, he is shipped out to Gallipoli.  What happens to him there influences Roland to join the army in the medical services.

What follows in Elizabeth Darrell’s novel is a moving tale of a family, community and world caught up in a gruesome, brutal war.  Each man experienced the war in a different way, and it affected those around him to a great deal.  Darrell is very descriptive in writing about their experiences through the Great War.  This is the first in a trilogy.  A good, long read.