Iain Maclean’s Cogadh Ruairidh (Ruairidh’s War) is an account of the first day of the Battle of the Somme through the eyes and the experience of a Highland soldier, Ruairidh, and his two friends. MacLean first describes the waiting period, when the soldiers’ emotions swing between tedium and high tension, fear and naïve overconfidence, and then, clearly and dispassionately, what the three men encounter as they go over the top and advance towards the enemy trenches – and the waiting machine guns. Cogadh Ruairidh is a powerful evocation of one of the grimmest days in the history of modern warfare.