BY JEFFERY E. JEFFERY   LONDON SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1917 [ All rights reserved ] PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND TO ONE WHO KNOWS NOTHING OF GUNS BUT MUCH OF LIFE MY MOTHER CONTENTS...

As the long troop train rumbled slowly over the water-logged wastes of Flanders, I sat in the corner of a carriage which was littered with all the débris of a twenty-four hours' journey and watched the fiery winter's sun set gorgeously. It was Christmas evening. Inevitably my mind went back to that other journey of sixteen months ago when we set forth so proudly, so exultantly to face the test of war. But how different, how utterly different is everything now! Last time, with the sun shining bri

The author of a little red book "War Establishments," labelled "For Official Use Only" (presumably a gentleman with a brain like an automatic ready-reckoner), probably thought of nothing whatever, certainly of no human being, when he penned the decree "Farrier-Sergeants—per battery—1." But if he could only see the result of his handiwork! For our farrier-sergeant David Evans is simply splendid. He is small and sturdy and middle-aged, with grizzled hair that shows at all times in front of his pus

We are beginning now to regard ourselves as old stagers. We have been in action for nearly three months and in that period our education, in all the essential things, has advanced at a most surprising pace. Our most cherished illusions—culled from the newspapers for the most part—have been dissipated and replaced by the realities of this life. How often, I wonder, have we read that this is a war of attrition, or of artillery, or of finance, or of petrol! It is none of these things—at least not f

"Per son ally myself," said the Child, tilting back his chair until his head touched the wall behind him, and stretching out a lazy arm towards the cigarette-box—"per son ally myself, I've enjoyed this trip no end—haven't you?" "I have," I answered; "so much so, Child, that the thought of going back to gun-pits and trenches and O.P.'s again fills me with gloom." It was our last night in a most comfortable billet near ——, where, on and off, we had spent rather more than a month of ease; on the mo

Somewhere about the middle of June, we knew definitely that we were "for it," as the soldier says; we knew that our division was one of those chosen for the great concentration which was to culminate in the "great push"—and we were proud of the distinction. A three days' march brought us to a certain training area, where we camped for a week and worked some seventeen hours a day—counting, that is, from réveillé at 4 a.m. until the last bit of harness was hung up clean and ready for the morrow at

... Fellow-creature I am, fellow-servant Of God: can man fathom God's dealings with us? * * * * * * * Oh! man! we, at least, we enjoy, with thanksgiving, God's gifts on this earth, though we look not beyond. You sin and you suffer, and we, too, find sorrow Perchance through your sin—yet it soon will be o'er; We labour to-day and we slumber to-morrow, Strong horse and bold rider! and who knoweth more? A. Lindsay Gordon. I In some equine Elysium where there are neither flies nor dust nor steep hil

I Second Lieutenant William Pickersdyke, sometime quartermaster-sergeant of the ——th Battery, and now adjutant of a divisional ammunition column, stared out of the window of his billet and surveyed the muddy and uninteresting village street with eyes of gloom. His habitual optimism had for once failed him, and his confidence in the gospel of efficiency had been shaken. For Fate, in the portly guise of his fatuous old colonel, had intervened to balk the fulfilment of his most cherished desire. Pi

"This 'appened in a battle to a batt'ry of the corps Which is first among the women an' amazin' first in war." —Kipling. I Driver Joseph Snatt, K3 Battery, R.H.A., slouched across the barrack-square on his way to the stables. Having just received a severe punishment for the heinous crime of ill-treating a horse, in spite of his plausible excuse that he had been bitten and had lost his temper, Snatty, as he was always called, felt much aggrieved. "'Orses," he thought to himself, "is everything in

I Rain! pitiless, incessant, drenching rain, that seemed to ooze and trickle and soak into every nook and cranny in the world, beat down upon the already sodden ground and formed great pools of water in every hollow. Fires blazed and flickered at intervals, revealing within the glowing circles of their light the huddled forms of weary soldiers; and all the myriad sounds of a huge camp blended imperceptibly with the raindrops' steady patter. According to orders the ——th Division had concentrated

October 15, 1914. Hospital, Bavai, France.—Woke up to find the ward seething with excitement. One of the English wounded had escaped in the night, leaving his greatcoat neatly placed in his bed in such a manner as to suggest a recumbent figure. How he succeeded in evading the attentions of a night-nurse, an R.A.M.C. orderly, a German sentry at the main gate and two others in the courtyard outside the ward, is a complete mystery. The situation for the French hospital authorities is serious. So fa

He reappeared about 9 a.m. to give the room what he called un coup de balai —his idiom for a superficial rite which he performed with a soft broom after scattering water freely about the floor. The resultant mess he picked up in his hands and put into the coal-box or pushed under a cupboard if he thought no one was looking. He spent the rest of his time till his dinner hour at eleven in cleaning the boots, making the beds, and pretending to dust things—all the while giving vent to his opinions o

Of the contents of this book , Snatty and Five-Four-Eight appeared in Blackwood's , and were both written before the war broke out—a fact which I mention with the selfish object of excusing myself for various technical errors therein : Henry appeared in The New Statesman . My thanks are due to the editors of both these journals for kindly allowing me to republish the stories. The remainder have all appeared in The Cornhill Magazine , to the editor of which I am deeply indebted for his unfailing