to whose recognition and appreciation of my work, and to whose instant and eager hospitality in the "Westminster Gazette" so much of these war writings is due, this book is very gratefully dedicated by...

I make no apology for having followed in this book the same plan as in my other one, "Between the Lines," of taking extracts from the official despatches as "texts" and endeavoring to show something of what these brief messages cover, because so many of my own friends, and so many more unknown friends amongst the reviewers, expressed themselves so pleased with the plan that I feel its repetition is justified. There were some who complained that my last book was in parts too grim and too terrible

The last conscious thought in the mind of Private Jock Macalister as he reached the German trench was to get down into it; his next conscious thought to get out of it. Up there on the level there were uncomfortably many bullets, and even as he leaped on the low parapet one of these struck the top of his forehead, ran deflecting over the crown of his head, and away. He dropped limp as a pole-axed bullock, slid and rolled helplessly down into the trench. When he came to his senses he found himself

" … the enemy temporarily gained a footing in a portion of our trench, but in our counter-attack we retook this and a part of enemy trench beyond ."—EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DESPATCH. A wet night, a greasy road, and a side-slipping motor-bike provided the means of an introduction between Second Lieutenant Courtenay of the 1st Footsloggers and Sergeant Willard K. Rawbon of the Mechanical Transport branch of the A.S.C. The Mechanical Transport as a rule extend a bland contempt to motor-cycles running

" Yesterday one of the enemy's heavy guns was put out of action by our artillery. "—EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH. "Stand fast!" the instructor bellowed, and while the detachment stiffened to immobility he went on, without stopping to draw breath, bellowing other and less printable remarks. After he had finished these he ordered "Detachment rear!" and taking more time and adding even more point to his remarks, he repeated some of them and added others, addressing abruptly and virulently the "Number" who

" During the night, only patrol and reconnoitering engagements of small consequence are reported." —EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH. "Straff the Germans and all their works, particularly their mine works!" said Lieutenant Ainsley disgustedly. "Seeing that's exactly what you're told off to do," said the other occupant of the dug-out, "why grouse about it?" Lieutenant Ainsley laughed. "That's true enough," he admitted; "although I fancy going out on patrol in this weather and on this part of the line would

"It may now be divulged that, some time ago, the British lines were extended for a considerable distance to the South." —EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DISPATCH. The first notice that the men of the Tower Bridge Foot had that they were to move outside the territory they had learned so well in many weary marches and wanderings in networks and mazes of trenches, was when they crossed a road which had for long marked the boundary line between the grounds occupied by the British and French forces. "Do you su

"At —— we recaptured the portion of front line trench lost by us some days ago." —EXTRACT FROM DISPATCH. "In a charge," said the Sergeant, "the 'Hotwater Guards' don't think about going back till there's none of them left to go back; and you can always remember this: if you go forward you may die, if you go back you will die." The memory of that phrase came back to Private Everton, tramping down the dark road to the firing-line. Just because he had no knowledge of how he himself would behave in

" Enemy airmen appearing over our lines have been turned hack or driven off by shell fire." —EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH. Gardening is a hobby which does not exist under very favorable conditions at the front, its greatest drawback being that when the gardener's unit is moved from one place to another his garden cannot accompany him. Its devotees appear to derive a certain amount of satisfaction from the mere making of a garden, the laying-out and digging and planting; but it can be imagined that the

This is not a story, it is rather a fragment, beginning where usually a battle story ends, with a man being "casualtied," showing the principal character only in a passive part—a very passive part—and ending, I am afraid, with a lot of unsatisfactory loose ends ungathered up. I only tell it because I fancy that at the back of it you may find some hint of the spirit that has helped the British Army in many a tight corner. Private Wally Ruthven was knocked out by the bursting of a couple of bombs

"Yesterday hostile artillery shelled the town of —— some miles behind our lines, without military result. Several civilians were killed ."—EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH. Two officers were cashing checks in the Bank of France and chatting with the cashier, who was telling them about a bombardment of the town the day before. The bank had removed itself and its business to the underground vaults, and the large room on the ground floor, with its polished mahogany counters, brass grills and desks, loomed dim

"It is reported that … "—EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DESPATCH. The "it" and the "that" which were reported, and which the despatch related in another three or four lines, concerned the position of a forward line of battle, but have really nothing to do with this account, which aims only at relating something of the method by which "it was reported" and the men whose particular work was concerned only with the report as a report, a string of words, a jumble of letters, a huddle of Morse dots and dashes

You must know plenty of people—if you yourself are not one of them—who hold out stoutly against any military compulsion or conscription in the belief that the "fetched" man can never be the equal in valor and fighting instinct of the volunteer, can only be a source of weakness in any platoon, company and regiment. This tale may throw a new light on that argument. Gerald Bunthrop was not a conscript in the strict sense of the word, because when he enlisted no legal form of conscription existed in

" … a violent counter-attack was delivered but was successfully repulsed at every point with heavy losses to the enemy ."—EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DESPATCH. There appears to be some doubt as to who rightly claims to have been the first to notice and report signs of the massing of heavy forces of Germans for the counter-attack on our positions. The infantry say that a scouting patrol fumbling about in the darkness in front of the forward fire trench heard suspicious sounds—little clickings of equipm

" At some points our lines have been slightly advanced and their position improved ."—EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH It has to be admitted by all who know him that the average British soldier has a deep-rooted and emphatic objection to "fatigues," all trench-digging and pick-and-shovel work being included under that title. This applies to the New Armies as well as the Old, and when one remembers the safety conferred by a good deep trench and the fact that few men are anxious to be killed sooner than is s

"Here we are," said the Colonel, halting his horse. "Fine view one gets from here." "Rather a treat to be able to see over a bit of country again, after so many months of the flat," said, the Adjutant, reining up beside the other. They were halted on the top of a hill, or, father, the corner of an edge on a wide plateau. On two sides of them the ground fell away abruptly, the road they were on dipping sharply over the edge and sweeping round and downward in a well-graded slope along the face of