A Distant Field: A Novel of World War I

Written by RJ MacDonald
Review by Jeff Westerhoff

There are many reasons why men joined the British Army in 1915 to fight the Germans. This story involves six men: two American brothers, Stuart and Ross McReynolds, along with the four O’Connell cousins from Ireland. Stuart and Ross see their parents drown aboard the Lusitania, sunk by a German U-Boat, and the O’Connell boys rescue the two brothers while on a fishing trip off the coast of Ireland. They lost a brother during the early stages of the Battle of Gallipoli.

They become friends and join the praised Seaforth Highlanders, a Scottish regiment. Originally bound for the battlefields of France, they were redirected to Gallipoli where intense trench warfare and occasional hand-to-hand fighting, and sniper fire existed.

The Battle of Gallipoli is dramatically described; the battle sequences are both horrifying and exciting. The chaos is pronounced as the British troops move from one fox hole to another as they move toward the Turkish Army. The major characters are fully fleshed out, sympathetic and the products of their time. This is a well-written novel, and if you are a collector of books on the First World War, I suggest you add this novel to your collection.

A Distant Field: A Novel of World War I by RJ MacDonald

Military Writers Society of America review

Living through the hell: bullets, bayonets and artillery.

From the sinking of the Lusitania to the battlefield cauldron of Gallipoli, RJ MacDonald weaves an action-packed story that leaves the reader breathless. Meticulously researched, the author traces the lives of two brothers from the moment the Lusitania is struck by a torpedo in 1915 to their dramatic rescue at sea off the coast of Ireland by four teenage O’Connell friends who rowed eleven miles to help survivors to the hell of World War I.

The brothers are Scots-Americans—Stuart and Ross McReynolds—bent on getting revenge from the Germans who killed their parents, enlisting in the British Army along with the O’Connells. After a week of basic training, mostly in sharpshooting, their small unit leaves for France but the trip is interrupted by the worst rail disaster in Great Britain’s history. Hospitalized by injuries from the train wreck, they missed the boat to France, but are shipped instead to Gallipoli, a battle in faraway Turkey that is not going well for the Allies. Crammed on a small peninsula, the boys join waves of brave soldiers rushing to the jaws of murderous machine guns, the rain of deadly artillery shells, the stench of rotting corpses, and inept field commanders who send thousands to their deaths.

The author brings to life the horror of trench warfare, of devastating artillery barrages that wipe out brigades charging on open ground, of the life and death struggle of hand-to-hand combat, of the thirst and constant hunger, of the heat and flies, of seeing your friends killed and wounded without being able to help them. In vivid detail, MacDonald tells the story of a section of the Seaford Highlanders and their relationships with the Royal Scots, the Scottish Rifle Brigade, the 52th Lowland Division, and the French, Australian, and New Zealander divisions, all suffering horrific casualties in one of the bloodiest and least successful campaigns of the First World War.

A Distant Field is not for the squeamish, but there are tender moments as Stuart and Ross meet young ladies who pine for them after they leave Scotland. The attention to detail of time and places, coupled with intimate understanding of soldiers in combat, makes me wait anxiously for its promised sequel.

Review by Joe Epley (February 2019)