The Human Boy and the War

"The Human Boy and the War" by Eden Phillpotts is a collection of humorous English schoolboy stories in the same genre as Rudyard Kipling's Stalky & Co., though different in mood and style. The main plot is set in the fictitious village of Merivale. Every story is narrated by a different schoolboy. Excerpt: «After the war had fairly got going, naturally we thought a good deal about it, and it was explained to us by Fortescue that, behind the theory of Germany licking us, or us licking Germany, as the case might be, there were two great psychical ideas. As I was going to be a soldier myself, the actual fighting interested me most, but the psychical ideas were also interesting because Fortescue said that often the cause won the battle. Therefore it was better to have a good psychical idea behind you, like us, than a rotten one, like Germany.»