For Stanley Woolley, commanding officer of Goshawk Squadron, the romance of chivalry in the clouds is just a myth. The code he drums into his men is simple and savage: shoot the enemy in the back before he knows you're there. Even so, he believes the whole squadron will be dead within three months. This book was short listed for the Booker Prize; this is Derek Robinson's masterly novel of the war in the air over the Western Front in 1918.