Written between 1942 and 1947, when Hamish Henderson was serving in the North African desert during the Second World War. Each elegy pays tribute to the men who fought with and against him, their lives portrayed with great sympathy and compassion, while the desert itself becomes the unforgiving enemy. Published in 1948, the poems were highly praised by his contemporaries including Cecil Day-Lewis, T S Eliot and Hugh MacDiarmid. The collection was awarded the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1949.