Shoot Straight, You Bastards! by Nick Bleszynski

Shoot Straight, You Bastards! (Australian First Edition Softcover on Breaker Morant)

The Court-Martial and Execution of Breaker Morant and Peter Handcock, Re-examined for the Centenary of the Case

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: Shoot Straight, You Bastards!: The truth behind the killing of 'Breaker' Morant
• Author: Nick Bleszynski
• Publisher: Random House Australia, Sydney
• Publication Date: 2002
• ISBN-13: 9781740510813
• ISBN-10: 174051081X
• Edition Details: First published by Random House Australia, 2002. Softcover release with a Foreword by Tim Fischer.
• Binding: Publisher's illustrated black card wrappers, perfect bound, large softcover (trade paperback) format.
• Physical Format: Large softcover (trade paperback) format, approximately 365 pages. Foreword by Tim Fischer.
• Language: English

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Good (G)
• Exterior / Wraps: The black printed card wrappers show honest wear: white creasing and scuffing to the covers, fine crease lines at the lower corners, and frayed or chipped corners. There is a small chipped patch at the head of the spine and a vertical crease line along the spine. The dark round marks on both covers are part of the printed bullet-hole design. A small handwritten mark sits near the top right of the front cover.
• Interior: The text block edges are tanned, with some toning and a few small marks at the fore-edge. The binding is sound, and the book has clearly been read. The pages sampled are clean but toned.
• Provenance: No inscriptions, bookplates or stamps, apart from a small faint handwritten mark on the upper front cover.
• The Dust Jacket: Not Applicable (As Issued)

Synopsis & Historical Value

Shoot Straight, You Bastards! examines the 1902 court martial and execution of the Australian lieutenants Harry 'Breaker' Morant and Peter Handcock, who were shot by a British firing squad outside Pretoria at dawn on 27 February 1902. They had been found guilty of murdering Boer prisoners, and the question the book asks is whether this was justice or murder.

Nick Bleszynski argues that the two men were made scapegoats by Lord Kitchener and the British authorities. The book was published for the centenary of the case, and the verdict is still disputed between Australian, British and South African sources.

The title comes from the closing scene of Bruce Beresford's 1980 film Breaker Morant, which brought the case to a worldwide audience. Morant was also a published balladeer, writing for The Bulletin under the pseudonym 'The Breaker'. This 2002 printing is a useful companion for collectors of Anglo-Boer War history with an Australian dimension.

Author Profile: Nick Bleszynski

Nick Bleszynski was born in Scotland and raised in central and eastern Africa. After university in the United Kingdom he worked for more than twenty years as a writer, producer and director for major broadcasters.

His other books include You'll Never Take Me Alive, on the life and death of the bushranger Ben Hall, and Bloodlust, the story of the convict cannibal Alexander Pearce (2008).