It is a steady climb from Camp Cove, a section of cobblestones are a reminder of how hard it would have been to manhandle equipment and supplies past Lady Beach to the Hornby Lighthouse. Standing next to this gun looking towards Camp Cove reminded me of Rachel Wards’s World War I TV movie, An Accidental Soldier.

Based on the novel, Silent Parts, by John Charalambous, An Accidental Soldier is about an Australian soldier who flees the carnage of the Western Front and finds refuge with a French woman in a remote farmhouse. Harry Lambert is a shy, thirty five year old Australian soldier, working as a baker behind the lines. He is a gentle man, a reluctant soldier, but a man like many who has been shamed by his local community into joining up. But when he is called into the front line Harry decides to run, finding refuge in a farmhouse owned by Colombe Jacotot, a Frenchwoman in her forties whose husband has abandoned her and whose son has recently been killed. Forced to work in an ammunitions factory, Colombe too is trenchant about the war. Through her Harry will learn true courage. Through him Colombe will learn beauty. Together they will discover a love so strong that each is willing to give their life for it. An accidental soldier is a tender, at times gripping love story between two people who find passion, in all its joy and hurt, at an age when they thought love has passed them by. It is a story of unexpected bravery of countless men and women who would not give up their lives for abstracts like glory, or country. Those who wanted to live for love and life.

– Written by Goalpost Pictures Australia, An Accidental Soldier, IMDb, 2013, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2366614/, viewed 27 November 2013

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Camp Cove
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