Through the Wheat

"Through the Wheat" by Thomas Boyd follows the experience of William Hicks, an automatic rifleman in the U.S. Marine Corps, through his first experience of combat, at Belleau Wood. He enlists in the summer of 1917 but spends a year in France, where he serves as a military policeman, stevedore, and construction laborer. He doesn't see front-line action and combat until the summer of 1918 when the novel begins.