This book testifies to life in the work detachments which made up Italian prisoner of war camp no. PG 146, based at Mortara in the Lomellina – an area of Lombardy to the south west of Milan. In September 1943, when news of the Italian Armistice reached the detachments, the prisoners escaped into the countryside and depended on the local people for food, clothing and shelter in the difficult months which followed, during which the occupying German forces hunted them down and sent those unfortunate enough to be recaptured to the Stalags. But there were some who managed to cross the Italian Alps into Switzerland, others who stayed in hiding with local families and one who travelled travelled hundreds of kilometres to reach the Allied Lines. The author's mother and her family hid three South Africans, and with the help of an underground movement set up for the purpose, all of them made it over the mountains to freedom.