24 chapters
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24 chapters
I. A Word of Explanation
I. A Word of Explanation
I write this welcome to you American soldiers and sailors because I know America personally and therefore I know what the word “welcome” means. And I see right away from the start that it is going to be a difficult proposition for us over here to compete with America in that particular industry. However, we mean to try, and we hope to succeed. Anyway, we shall not fail from lack of good-will. Having bid you welcome to our shores, I am next going to ask you to remember just one thing. We are very
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II. First Impressions
II. First Impressions
Meanwhile, let us ask for your impressions of our country. It is only fair that we should be allowed to do this, for you know what happens to visitors in the United States when the reporters get their hooks into them. So far as I have been able to gather, your impressions amount to something like this: There is no ice-water, no ice-cream, no soda-fountains, no pie. It is hard to get the old familiar eats in our restaurants. Our cities are planned in such a way that it is impossible to get to any
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III. The Land We live in
III. The Land We live in
Next, our cities. After your own straight, wide, methodically-numbered streets and avenues, London, Liverpool, Glasgow, and the rest must seem like a Chinese puzzle. I can only say in excuse that they have been there a very long time, and the people who started in to build them did not foresee that they would ever extend more than a few blocks. If Julius Cæsar had known that London was ultimately going to cover an area of seven hundred square miles, and house a population of seven and a half mil
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IV. Our Climate
IV. Our Climate
Then there is our weather. An Englishman never knows on going to work in the morning whether to take a palm-leaf hat, or a fur overcoat, or a diving-suit. The trouble is that our weather arrives too suddenly. We are an island in the middle of the ocean, and most of our weather comes in from the Atlantic, where there is no one to watch it. Our weather prophets simply have to take a chance. That is all. With you it is different. Your weather travels across a continent three thousand miles wide. Yo
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V. Our Transportation
V. Our Transportation
Then there are our railroads. These, like our boxed-in passenger coaches and little four-wheel freight cars, tickle you to death, I know. The compartment system is a national symptom. An Englishman loves one thing above all others, and that is to get a railway compartment to himself. Nobody knows why, but he does. Probably the craving arises from his inability to converse easily with strangers. That inability is passing away. I shall speak of it later. But the three-class system is a relic of an
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VI. Our Gopher Runs
VI. Our Gopher Runs
Then comes our substitute for your Subway, and street-car system generally. In London you will notice that there are two kinds of Subway—the so-called Underground, or shallow transit, and the deep Tubes. The system is so complicated, owing to the shape of London, that it has been found impossible to have a one-price ticket such as prevails everywhere in the United States. The Underground is the oldest underground railroad in the world. You probably gathered that for yourself the first time you s
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VII. Our National Joke
VII. Our National Joke
But we have a sense of humour all the same. Our money system, like our joint system of weights and measures, is, as you very properly observe, a practical joke. It dates back to the time when an Englishman bought his Sunday dinner with a pound of rock. It is bound to go soon, and make way for the decimal system, just as inches and feet and yards are already making way in this country for metres and centimetres. Meanwhile we have got to put up with it. The main points for an American to remember
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VIII. Ourselves
VIII. Ourselves
Lastly, ourselves. This chapter is going to be the most difficult. Last year I met an American soldier in London. He was one of the first who had come over. I asked his impressions. He said: “I have been in London three days, and not a soul has spoken to me.” And therein was summed up the fundamental difference between our two nations. In the United States people like to see one another and talk to one another, and meet fresh people. If a stranger comes to town, reporters interview him as he ste
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CHAPTER ONE THE ARGONAUTS
CHAPTER ONE THE ARGONAUTS
A ship is sailing on the sea—a tall ship, with several masts and an imposing array of smokestacks. She is moving at a strictly processional pace, with a certain air of professional boredom. In fact, the disconsolate hissing of her steam escape-pipes intimates quite plainly that she is accustomed to a livelier life than this. But a convoy belongs to the straitest sect of Labour-Unionism: its pace is regulated to that of the slowest performer; so ocean greyhounds in such company must restrain them
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CHAPTER TWO SHIP’S COMPANY
CHAPTER TWO SHIP’S COMPANY
However, we have not reached our destination yet; which is just as well, for at present we are fully occupied in assimilating our new surroundings. To tell the truth, some of us have a good deal to assimilate. There is young Boone Cruttenden, for instance. Little more than a year ago he was preparing to settle down in his ancestral home in Kentucky, there to prop the declining years of an octogenarian parent, Colonel Harvey Cruttenden, known in far-back Confederate days as one of General Sam Whe
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CHAPTER THREE THE LOWER DECK
CHAPTER THREE THE LOWER DECK
If you clamber down the accommodation ladder on to the well-deck amidships, you will find yourself in a world which will enable you to contemplate War from yet another angle. For a guide and director I can confidently recommend Mr. Al Thompson, late of Springfield, Illinois—“No, sir , not Massachusetts!” he will be careful to inform you—now a seasoned ornament of a Trench Mortar Battery. “We sure are one dandy outfit,” he observes modestly. “Two hundred roughnecks! I’ll make you known to a few.
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CHAPTER FOUR THE DANGER ZONE
CHAPTER FOUR THE DANGER ZONE
There are many other types on board. Here is one at your elbow. He is a sentry, on Number Nine post. His duties appear to be confined to scrutinizing the ocean for periscopes. This is not a very arduous task, for we are not in the danger zone at present. Indeed, a good deal of this sentry’s time appears to be spent in gazing over the taffrail towards the setting sun—towards America. Possibly he ought to be straining his eyes towards France. But we are all human, especially the American soldier b
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CHAPTER FIVE TERRA INCOGNITA
CHAPTER FIVE TERRA INCOGNITA
We have not yet reached France, but we have discovered England. It is a small island, and the visitor must be prepared for a primitive civilization—for instance, The Saturday Evening Post costs at least fifteen cents—but it offers a fruitful and interesting field for exploration. Our debarkation was not attended by any marked popular demonstration. Some of us were inclined to resent the omission as savouring of insular aloofness. But now we know the real reason. We are not supposed to be here. W
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CHAPTER SIX SOCIAL CUSTOMS OF THE ISLANDERS
CHAPTER SIX SOCIAL CUSTOMS OF THE ISLANDERS
We are now at a rest-camp, recharging our batteries after the fatigues of sea travel before proceeding to the conquest of Germany. The camp is situated deep in rural England. At our feet, in a valley, lies an ancient city, dominated by a mighty cathedral. It was once a walled city, but only the gates remain now—King’s Gate and West Gate. At the top of the High Street stands a great rough-hewn statue of Alfred the Great—dead for more than a thousand years. He makes a fine figure, with his coat of
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CHAPTER SEVEN THREE MUSKETEERS IN LONDON
CHAPTER SEVEN THREE MUSKETEERS IN LONDON
Our stay in England has been prolonged beyond the usual time, chiefly because that impartial foe of the just and the unjust, the Spanish Influenza, has opened a campaign against us, and it is manifestly foolish to attack Germany before you have settled accounts with Spain. Pending the time when our invalids shall be convalescent, we have had some interesting experiences. We have explored the countryside, and studied and analyzed the structure of insular society. We have consorted with Barons, Sq
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CHAPTER EIGHT THE PROMISED LAND
CHAPTER EIGHT THE PROMISED LAND
We have now discovered France. Our first impression of that fair but voluble land is one of amazement that the inhabitants should be able to speak such a difficult language so fluently. Even the children can do it. Later, we modified that opinion—either because we found that the French tongue was not so difficult as we had imagined, or more probably because we had learned that in France a knowledge of French is not so indispensable—at any rate, in war-time—as we had imagined. Indeed, we found th
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CHAPTER NINE THE EXILES
CHAPTER NINE THE EXILES
So tremendous was America’s response when in the spring of this year the call came to her from the Western Front to hurry, so overwhelming the host which she sent over, that our chief difficulty to-day is not to withstand the Hun, but to find a vacant spot on his carcass to hit. We have been in France for over a month now, but so far our services as a unit have not been required in the Line. But we are acclimatized by this time. The days of our green youth in the big camps back home have faded a
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CHAPTER TEN S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE
CHAPTER TEN S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE
To most of us hitherto the letters S.O.S. have signified calamity of some kind—appeals for succour from sinking liners, and the like. Our British liaison officers, too, tell us that S.O.S. is the epithet applied to the rockets which are always kept in position in British front-line trenches, to be discharged as an urgent intimation to the gunners behind that the enemy are attacking in mass. But in the American Army S.O.S. means “Service of Supply.” It denotes, not panic, but order, and control,
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CHAPTER ELEVEN THE LINE
CHAPTER ELEVEN THE LINE
Most of us in our extreme youth, before we leave home and adventure upon the Great Unknown of school life—the most formidable ordeal, by the way, that the majority of us ever have to face—endeavour to prepare ourselves for what we imagine lies before us by a course of study. We devour stories about schools and schoolboys, with an application most unusual in the young. We have all the tenderfoot’s fear of being considered a tenderfoot, so we take pains to acquire the schoolboy tone; schoolboy atm
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CHAPTER TWELVE CHASING MONOTONY
CHAPTER TWELVE CHASING MONOTONY
At present the authorities are engaged in impressing upon us the truth of the maxim which says that you must not run before you can walk. Our immediate duty is to show that we can stand the test of ordinary trench warfare. First, such every-day nuisances as the German sniper. And here we have a pleasant little success to record. When we took over these trenches, snipers were numerous and vigilant. If you raised your head above the parapet, one of two things happened. Either you heard a sound lik
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN AN EXCURSION AND AN ALARUM
CHAPTER THIRTEEN AN EXCURSION AND AN ALARUM
We now regard ourselves, justifiably, as initiated. We have been bombarded fairly regularly. We do not like it, but we can stand it, which is all that matters—as eels probably remark while being skinned. We are getting used, also, to the sight of sudden death and human blood. These things affect us less than we expected. It is all a matter of environment. If you were to see a man caught and cut in two between a street-car and a taxi-cab in your own home town, the spectacle would make you physica
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE
CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE
During the past fortnight we have been learning the difference between Warfare of Position and Warfare of Movement, and we are very, very tired. Moreover, the end of our labour is not yet. But we have made good. The Divisional General himself has informed us of the fact, in an official Order. So has the enemy, in an even more flattering fashion. He has fallen back—steadily and stubbornly—but back. The fighting began more than a fortnight ago. But first of all we had to get to the scene of action
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE ELEVENTH HOUR
CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE ELEVENTH HOUR
The Colonel was speaking. “Now listen to what the Intelligence Report has to say about the enemy’s defensive arrangements. “ The road leading into the Wood on the west side is said to be furnished with tank traps. Well, we don’t have any tanks to-day, so we should worry about that. (By the way, boys, remind me to tell you a story afterwards about a tank.) All indications point to the fact that the enemy battalion occupying the north side of Lapin Wood —that’s where we are now— has received order
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN GALLIA VICTRIX
CHAPTER SIXTEEN GALLIA VICTRIX
Lastly, two friends of ours in Paris. This is an unsatisfactory world, and our destinies are not always controlled as we could wish. But occasionally—just once or twice, maybe, in a lifetime—something happens (or is arranged for us) which so utterly transcends our own dreams and deserts as to restore our faith in an All-Wise and All-Benevolent Providence once and for all. Frances Lane had been transferred to a military hospital in Paris. Here she discharged, cheerfully and efficiently, those min
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