It served in the last phases of the Battle of the Somme, and was virtually destroyed fighting in the capture of Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre – of the 435 officers and men of his battalion who went into the attack, Herbert was one of only twenty to be fit for service the next day.
It may have been slightly redrafted in the intervening months – he makes a passing comparison of the court-martial to his recollections of the royal stables in Spain, a place he visited shortly after the Armistice.
Returning to his battalion, he is detailed for a party to the front line by the colonel within an hour; when the narrator arrives six weeks later, he discovers Penrose is under arrest for cowardice in the face of the enemy.
The character of Penrose bears close similarities to Herbert himself – a man who had left Oxford and enlisted in the ranks, later to take a commission and serve at Gallipoli and on the Western Front.
[12] The case of Harry Penrose's trial is thought to be based on that of Sub-Lieutenant Edwin Dyett, who was court-martialled for desertion at the attack on Beaucourt in November 1916, and later executed.
There is no indication Herbert knew Dyett personally – they were in separate battalions – but the matter was generally discussed in the division, and close friends recall his being "so upset"[13] by the events.
The book was published on 29 May 1919, by Methuen, advertised as "A novel describing the human side of the soldier – his fears and everyday distresses of his life; of the gradual decay of his illusions; of his courage and his failure".
[18] H. A. L. Fisher called it "a masterpiece", whilst Montgomery thought it "the best story of front line war"; from a purely literary perspective, it received a very positive review from Arnold Bennett.
[21] Herbert himself later claimed that it had helped "alter in some way"[17] Army policy on the management of courts-martial – Churchill was Secretary of State for War at the time he read it, in the immediate post-war period.
"[22] The immediate commercial failure of the novel has been suggested as pivotal in Herbert's later career – it was clear to him that novel-writing was not likely to prove financially rewarding, which helped focus his efforts on light journalism and set the tone for most of his later writings.
[23] He would not write anything quite the same again – The House by the River (1920), a crime novel, retains something of the simple style, but begins to introduce elements of humour not found in The Secret Battle.