Three into Nine

New York, 1945. Seventeen-year-old Sal Hecht chafes against city life, having spent four years imagining himself a wartime hero on the battlefield. With the fighting over and his attempts to enlist blocked at every turn, he feels his future has closed before it began. He takes a post as an apprentice seaman in the Merchant Marine, hoping it will open a path toward something better, though he cannot foresee what the journey will bring.

Two years on, France is locked in a conflict in Indochina that many already view as hopeless, and Sal's path crosses with those of two other men as he signs up for the French Foreign Legion. Avram, a survivor of Auschwitz, sees the Legion as a chance to stand among a company of soldiers. Jaehne, a corporal, deserted the German Army shortly before the war ended and joined the Legion to escape his past.

Brought together by circumstance, the three serve through the nine years of fighting in French Indochina. Each faces his own trials, and each, in his own way, becomes a comrade and a hero. The novel follows three men from very different backgrounds who end up in the Foreign Legion during the struggle to hold together the French colonial empire.