Dark forest

British novelist Hugh Walpole was unable to join the armed services because of his poor eyesight. During World War I he worked as a reporter based in Moscow for The Saturday Review and The Daily Mail. In this capacity, he visited the front in Poland. Walpole had been appointed as a Russian officer in the Sanitar, a division of the Red Cross that carried the wounded out of trenches and did whatever needed to be done at base hospitals. Before he left for Petrograd, Walpole's novel The Dark Forest was published. It drew on his experiences in Russia, and was understandably more somber than much of his earlier fiction. Reviews were highly favorable.