Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: Harris says in is brief forward that he used first-hand accounts from surviving survivors – that combined with his impeccable research means you get the feeling that all of it is based on real anecdote. That clearly can’t be the case. It is a fictional account after all – but you can’t tell which is anecdote and which is made up. That makes this book unique – no one else can tell the story of the City Battalion using such strong evidence. It feels very authentic. John Harris's neglected masterpiece of a novel, Covenant With Death, is the success that it is because it follows a group of Sheffield workers from their flag-waving sign-up to the hecatomb on the Somme'

Your treaty with death will be wiped away. Your agreement with the grave will not stand. When the overwhelming disaster passes by, you will be trampled by it. If you believe on Jesus, you will make haste to enter into the bond of His covenant, which is life eternal. Jesus has disannulled the agreement with death we were bound in through the sin of Adam, and further through the sins of the children of Israel.

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Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. More than the details of the murder, the process of the trial, or the guilt or innocence of the accused, this is a story about the struggle of a good man to judge the life of another without prejudice or ???. It is about reaching deep and finding the best you can be among the foibles that make you a human being. It is about the choice every man who is challenged with injustice must make: whether to be part of the status quo or to risk stepping outside the boundaries that are comfortable to us all. Covenant” takes place in a small southwestern town that, in 1922, was “part frontier, part plantation, part pleasure, part cruelty, part old Mexico, part clanking modernity and, as noted, part murder.” It is this murder that is explored by the author, bringing forward details of the act, the arrest, the trial, and subsequent aftermath that befalls the alleged murderer. The narrator is a twenty-nine year old inexperienced judge who is beset with life’s problems, none of which seem particularly earth shattering until he takes charge of the legal proceedings that follow the actual trial. His confidence is shaken.

Ben has his own romantic problems being caught between two women, a desirable Swedish girl, and a sultry Mexican heiress. As Ben struggles with the trial and his personal demons, he faces the truth about himself and the law. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned— To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. Your covenant with death will be annulled, And your agreement with Sheol (the place of the dead) will not stand; When the overwhelming scourge passes through, Then you will become its trampling ground. The last line ought to be carved in stone somewhere . . . Find it. Read it. You'll be a better person for having done so' Maybe.” I rubbed my eyes. “I don’t mind responsibility up to a point. But I don’t like power. I don’t trust it. And a judge has a hell of a lot of it.Because ye have said: 'We have made a covenant with death, and with the nether-world are we at agreement; when the scouring scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us; for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood have we hid ourselves'; There are contrasts between them too. 'Covenant with Death' describes the death of a battalion; 'Her Privates We' is half as long and focuses on the deaths of two men. 'Her Privates We' is a work of literature, generally regarded as the greatest British novel of World War I; 'Covenant with Death' has no literary pretensions, being a documentary novel. And perhaps the key difference: while Harris was born in the year of the Battle of the Somme, Manning actually fought in it.