Long Way Back

North Africa, 1943. An American tank crew goes into battle. Only one man walks away.Sergeant Silas Rourke has survived Operation Torch and the hard advance into Tunisia. He and the men of his M3 tank, Betty Lou, have learned quickly that training can only prepare a soldier for so much.Then comes Sidi Bou Zid.Caught in a devastating German counterattack, Betty Lou is destroyed and Rourke's entire crew is killed. Wounded, burned and stranded behind enemy lines, he watches the American forces retreat into the distance.Rourke has no radio. No tank. No crew.And German troops are closing around him.What follows is a desperate journey across war-torn Tunisia as Rourke attempts to reach friendly lines. Help comes from unexpected places: Tunisian civilians risking their lives for a stranger, scattered Allied soldiers, fellow prisoners-and even moments of humanity from men wearing the enemy's uniform.But reaching safety is only the beginning.Haunted by the four men who died inside Betty Lou, Rourke must face a different battle: learning how to live when the men beside him did not.From the disaster at Sidi Bou Zid and the fighting around Kasserine Pass to captivity, escape and the long aftermath of survival, The Long Way Back is a historical military novel about courage, brotherhood, survivor's guilt and the ordinary people caught inside extraordinary events.The tank was lost.The crew was gone.But for Sergeant Silas Rourke, the longest journey was still ahead.Fiction inspired by the real battles and experiences of American forces during the Tunisian Campaign of 1942-43.