All his life, James knew he needed to make a journey. It was a journey that would take him far from home and use up his life's savings. Now, at the age of 65, he has made a decision to retrace his father's footsteps – to walk the battlefields where his father [also named James] had fought as a boy of 17. Shortly before Anzac Day he set off with the diary which his father kept throughout the First World War …

… The clouds hung low as the bus approached the road to Hill 60. The showers had cleared by the time the bus reached the turn-off but the road was still too muddy … James strode forth … mud [clinging] to his boots. He was surrounded by fields of ripening wheat [and] the … red of wild poppies. In the distance, a shepherd and his dog herded goats in an olive grove … The road opened into a clearing with a small cemetery containing the graves of … soldiers and a memorial to those whose bodies could not be identified. James took out his father's diary and imagined the scene which this boy soldier [saw] 85 years ago.