Waterloo. I'll send you a wire from there when I know what hospital
I am for. Shan't know that till we reach Waterloo. Meantime--that's
Winchester we've just passed. Old England looks just the same. There
is a little snow lying on the high ground round Winchester. It looks
the same--yes, in a way; and in another way it never will look just the
same again to me. Never just the same, I think. It will always mean a
jolly lot more to me than it ever did before. Perhaps I'll be able to
tell you about that when we meet. I find I can't write it. Queer thing,
isn't it, that just seeing these fields from the windows of a train
should bring the water to one's eyes? Very queer! One kind of sees it
all through a picture of the trenches, you know.
"The Old Peacemaker" didn't tell me, but I know now that nearly half
"A" Company are casualties; and there's a good many "gone West." Poor
Taffy's gone. Such a clever lad, Taffy. My Platoon won't be quite
the same again, will it? Platoon Sergeant, one other Sergeant, two
Corporals, and a lot of men gone. We were in front, you see. Oh! I know
there's nothing to grieve about, really. Petticoat Lane's behind our
front now, thank goodness. That'll save many a good man from "going
West" between now and the end of the war.
I'm not grieving, but it makes a difference, just as England is
different. Everything must be different now. It can't be the same
again, ever, after one's been in the trenches. If Germany wants to
boast, she can boast that she's altered the world for us. She certainly
has. It can never be the same again. But I think it will be found, by
and by, she has altered it in a way she never meant. Of course, I don't
know anything much about it; just the little bit in one's own Brigade,
you know. But it does seem to me, from the little I've seen, that where
Germany meant to break us, she has made us infinitely stronger than we
were before. Look at our fellows! Each one is three times the man he
was before the war. The words "fighting for England" had next to no
meaning for me before August, 1914. But now! that's why these fields
look different, why England can never again look the same to me as it
did before. I know now that this England is part of me, or I'm part
of it. I know the meaning of England, and I swear I never did before.
Why, you know, the very earth of it--well, when I think how the Boche
has torn and ravaged all before him over there, and then think of our
England, of what the Hun would do here, if he got half a chance....
It's as though England were one's mother, and some swine were to----
But it's no good. I can't write about it. I'll try to tell you. But,
do you know, it wasn't till I saw these fields that the notion came
over me that I'm sort of proud and glad to have these blessed wounds;
glad to have been knocked about a bit. I wonder whether you and Mother
will be glad, too; I somehow think you will--for your
"_Temporary Gentleman_."
THE END
_A Selection from the_
_Catalogue of_
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Complete Catalogues sent
on application
FIRST CALL
GUIDE POSTS TO BERLIN
BY
ARTHUR GUY EMPEY
_Author of "OVER THE TOP"_
_12°. Illustrated. $1.50 (By mail, $1.65)_
In the amazingly vivid and simple way that has made =Over the Top= the
most widely read and talked of book in America, and the most successful
war book in all history, Empey tells the new soldiers
What they want to know
What they ought to know
What they'll have to know
and what their parents, sweethearts, wives, and all Americans, will
want to know, and can do to help.
A practical book by an American who has been through it all.
The chapters headed "Smokes" and "Thank God the Stretcher Bearers" will
stand among the war classics.
Here is advice, here are suggestions, overlooked in other books, that
will safeguard our boys in France.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
New York London
* * * * *
_IT IS THE REAL STUFF_
OVER THE TOP
BY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER WHO WENT
ARTHUR GUY EMPEY
MACHINE GUNNER, SERVING IN FRANCE
_AUTHOR OF_
"_FIRST CALL_"
For a year and a half, until he fell wounded in No Man's Land, this
American soldier saw more actual fighting and real warfare than any war
correspondent who has written about the war. His experiences are grim,
but they are thrilling and lightened by a touch of humor as original as
the Soldiers Three. And they are true.
_12°. 16 Illustrations and Diagrams. $1.50 net._
_By mail, $1.65_
TOGETHER WITH TOMMY'S DICTIONARY OF THE
TRENCHES
"_Over The Top with the Best of_
_Luck and Give Them Hell!_"
_The British Soldier's War Cry, as he goes over the_
_top of the trench to the charge_
* * * * *
By Bruce Bairnsfather
"=A War Lord of Laughter=."--_The Literary Digest._
Fragments from
France
Author of
"Bullets & Billets"
_8°. 143 Plates. 15 Small Illustrations_
_$1.75 net. By mail, $1.90_
Captain Bruce Bairnsfather's sketches set all England chuckling,
when they first appeared in the _Bystander_, and they have met with
as hearty a welcome by Americans who have had the luck to see them.
Greatest of all commendation, German prisoners have been known to
become hilarious over these indescribable pictures of life in the
trenches, and war-fed "Tommys" roar over them. Now, with their amusing
captions, they have been gathered into one volume.
These pictures have won in England for the author the title "The man
who made the Empire laugh," and caused the _Literary Digest_ to refer
to him as "A War Lord of Laughter." They are all war pictures, but
calculated to take a deal of the bitterness out of war.
* * * * *
Bullets & Billets
By
Bruce Bairnsfather
Author of "Fragments from France"
_12°. 18 Full-page and 23 Text Illustrations. $1.50 By mail, $1.60_
"'Bill,' 'Bert,' and 'Alf' have turned up again. Captain Bairnsfather
has written a book--a rollicking and yet serious book--about himself
and them, describing the joys and sorrows of his first six months in
the trenches. His writing is like his drawing. It suggests a masculine,
reckless, devil-may-care character and a workmanlike soldier.
Throughout the book he is as cheerful as a schoolboy in a disagreeable
football match."--_London Evening News._
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York London
Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Other
errors are noted below.
- Changed typo on pg. 2: "out" > "our" ("with out regimental
hound pacing in front")
- Removed extraneous comma pg. 23 ("opposite, our Battalion
Headquarters.")
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Word combinations that appeared with and without hyphens were changed
to the predominant form if it could be determined, or to the hyphenated
form if it could not.
Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters,
_like this_. Words in bold characters are surrounded by equal signs,
=like this=. Underlined text in advertisements not marked up.