Front flap:
"Thirty-one writers contribute to this series. They are not all in the Services, for with this series, and in recognition of demobilisation, publication in our pages is no longer conditional upon that, but their work, without exception, mirrors the frantic scene-shifting of our times, whether we are witnessing the ribaldry and uneasy companionship of women conscripts or the lonely end of a Chinese lieutenant in a foreign hospital. Scene shifiting it is more than performance ; and so you will not find here any pretence that we are living in a secure world.
But if the basis of our contributions is an honest aceptance of things as they reallly are-that is to say, largely unsatisfactory for the individual we feel that at the same time this volume lives up to the reputation of the series for bold, lively, imaginative writing. Commentators uppon our affairs are frequently forced to be gloomy ; but creative writers are under no such compulsion, and in many of these pieces a fine sense of fun is released"