Sherston's progress

the long version

The capstone of Siegfried Sassoon's masterful George Sherston trilogy, Sherston's Progress, opens with Sherston under the care of neurologist Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, who allows the shell-shocked soldier to sort through his "futile demons" regarding the war still raging around him. After six months convalescing, Sherston rejoins his regiment before being dispatched to Ireland - where he attempts to reclaim some of the bucolic sense of his youth - then on to Palestine. He survives a gunshot to the head when back on the Western Front in France and ends up again with Rivers, who attempts to help Sherston journey through the aftereffects of war's particular horrors toward the beginning of a new life.