‘The sun was high in the sky that day, so the shape on the road ahead stood out in sharp relief as we approached. A body, straddling the righthand lane, and as we drew closer, I saw that it was almost as if he were asleep, head on the white line, feet pointing toward the road’s edge. Except, he had no head . . . That image – a boy-soldier with no boots, no weapon, and no head – haunted my every waking minute, and many of my nightmare-ridden sleeps, for the next 35 years.’

Norman McFarlane was a teenager just out of school when he was conscripted for military service. He was thrown into the horrors of war amid the apartheid regime’s secret campaign: Operation Savannah in 1975 and 1976. Join him in his loss of innocence in Angola, the subsequent camps in the years afterwards and his journey in dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. Told with honesty and humour, McFarlane gives voice to a generation of white South African men forced into a grisly, life-defining experience.