In 1915 Walter James, a house painter from Shoreditch, enlisted with the 6^th Battalion London Regiment (The City of London Rifles), known as the Cast Iron Sixth. He saw action at Loos, Vimy, the Somme, Ypres and Passchendaele before being transferred to the 2^nd Battalion 16^th London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles) for service in Palestine. Invalided back to Blighty, he performed with a concert party of wounded soldiers. His vivid memoir recalls the sights and sounds of battle alongside the realities of day-to-day life and comradeship, laced with plenty of Cockney humour.