The Flowers of the Grass Series

August 1914: as war breaks out across Europe, German student Franz Becker rushes to enlist. He is nineteen and the war appears to offer adventure and the chance to escape from his safe, dull life. Most of the volunteers are filled with enthusiasm, but Franz's closest friend, Karl von Leussow, is appalled by the conflict. Karl's family has provided the Prussian Army with officers for generations and he knows that war is brutal and bloody. But he too enlists, believing that he must defend his country even at the cost of his own life. After a few weeks' training, the volunteers are sent to the Western Front and into intense fighting. Over the months that follow, the survivors become soldiers. Franz starts to rise up the ranks and is pressured to become an officer. He is reluctant to take the "express ticket to eternity" but becomes fascinated by the aircraft that appear more and more often above the trenches. What would it be like to fly, and see the war from above? Home Before the Leaves Fall is the first volume of the series The Flowers of the Grass, which follows Franz and Karl through the Great War.

Having survived the trenches on the Western Front, Franz Becker has joined the Air Service and learns to fly in a fragile, unreliable machine. He passes his pilot's course and is posted to a two-seater squadron in the east, where he is responsible for flying the slow, vulnerable biplane while his observer defends them against Russian fighters with only a single machine-gun.  Fought on vast open plains, the war in the East is one of movement. Germany's main ally is the tottering Austro-Hungarian Empire whose forces are unreliable and undermined by internal conflict. The Eastern Front would collapse without German support, as Franz and his comrades are only too aware.  When the squadron is moved to the Western Front, they come face to face with skilful and determined opposition from French and English fighters, and the casualty rate mounts. Franz and his fellow pilots are keen to leave the lumbering two-seater aircraft for the agile and better-armed fighters, and to be the hunter instead of the hunted.  At the same time Franz's closest friend, Karl von Leussow, is fighting for his life in the blood-soaked earth of Verdun, where his regiment is almost annihilated. He decides to follow Franz into the air but first he has to stay alive

Having survived his first months as a fighter pilot, Franz Becker is joined by his close friend Karl von Leussow in autumn 1916. Karl's marksmanship quickly transfers to his new weapon. Reunited with his older brother, an intense rivalry quickly grows as Karl's score increases. Every pilot's ambition is to shoot down enough enemy aircraft to be awarded the coveted BLUE MAX – but most will die with a score of zero. Though their Albatros fighters are superior to anything the Allies possess, they are still fragile and flammable. Many men face a fiery death and in some, fear takes a stronger hold. Franz and Karl are haunted by their bloody experiences of war. But both know that they have to continue fighting until the end, whenever and however that may come.

As summer 1917 continues, the war in the air over the Western Front becomes ever more deadly. Imperial Germany is surrounded by enemies, strangled by the Allied blockade, and its resources are slowly running out. The war must be won soon, or the nation will go under. Franz Becker, Karl von Leussow and his brother Johnny, and the other members of the squadron fight for their lives against new, better and more numerous Allied aircraft. Their own fighters are flawed and unreliable, there are still no parachutes, and all are haunted by the fear of a fiery death. New pilots, barely out of school, last only a few weeks before being shot down or crashing. The most successful aces receive Prussia's highest decoration, the coveted Blue Max, and are celebrated in newspapers and the cinema, but they are deeply aware that their glory is bought with other men's blood and that their own time is running out. Franz and Karl have been at war for nearly three years, both know more dead men than living ones, and each fight takes them a little closer to the edge. Who will survive?

January 1918: Franz Becker, a high-scoring, decorated ace, rejoins his fighter squadron in Flanders. He has been fighting since October 1914, and is suffering badly from the strain of war. Imperial Germany is almost finished, strangled by the Allied blockade, its people starving. The country is running out of men and resources, but there is one last chance to win the war: Russia has made peace and the Americans have yet to arrive.   Franz and his fellow pilots know that they have to fight on, no matter how outnumbered they are, otherwise the enemy will be in Germany. The Spring takes a heavy toll of the top aces, and Franz knows that it will soon be his turn to go to the Great Army. His close friend Karl von Leussow is at home in Brandenburg, on convalescent leave after being shot down and badly wounded the summer before. Franz misses him desperately, but believes Karl to be safe. He can only hope that they will meet again, "after the war"... whenever that may be.   Spring turns to Summer and every German offensive fails, with terrible casualties. The Allied aircraft are ever more numerous, the new pilots are barely out of school, and most die within a couple of weeks. The ranks of the Great Army continue to grow. How many more men will die before peace is made?