The Trap by Dan Billany Faber & Faber 1950.

         Little is known about the last months of Dan Billany's life. At the end of the Second World War gates to the prisoner of war camps in Italy were opened. Dan, while making his way through the countryside left  manuscripts in the safe keeping of a sympathetic  farmer Dino Meletti.  In 1946 the manuscripts of The Trap and The Cage arrived at Newlands, the Billanys  home in Yeovil, Somerset. Dan was never to return.

The Trap is a deeply moving story, written with great honesty and force.

Michael Carr, an army lieutenant, tells of his early years in Cornwall, of the girl he met and loved there, and of the hard times her family endured between the wars. Troubles and joys give place to tragedy in the second world war, and there follows a narrative of comradeship, suspense and fighting in the North African desert which for actuality has surely never been surpassed. The Trap is both a passionate story, and a document on the time. Had Dan Billany lived he might have made some revision to it. Faber and Faber published it as he wrote it, believing that his voice should be heard.

scroll over picture for link to extracts from The Trap at pennilesspress

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