FOREWORD I JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY II GOING IN III A TRENCH RAID IV A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS V FEEDING THE TOMMIES VI HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE VII FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK VIII ON THE GO IX FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS X FOLLOWING THE TANKS INTO BATTLE XI PRISONERS XII I BECOME A BOMBER XIII BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN XIV THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP XV BITS OF BLIGHTY XVI SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Corporal Holmes in the Uniform of the 22nd London Battalion, Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment, H.M. Imperial Army _Frontispiece_ Reduced Facsimile of Discharge Certificate of Character A Heavy Howitzer, Under Camouflage Over the Top on a Raid Cooking Under Difficulties Head-on View of a British Tank Corporal Holmes with Staff Nurse and Another Patient, at Fulham Military Hospital, London, S.W. Corporal Holmes with Company Office Force, at Winchester, England, a Week Prior to Discharge A YANKEE IN THE TRENCHES CHAPTER I JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY Once, on the Somme in the fall of 1916, when I had been over the top and was being carried back somewhat disfigured but still in the ring, a cockney stretcher bearer shot this question at me: "Hi sye, Yank. Wot th' bloody 'ell are you in this bloomin' row for? Ayen't there no trouble t' 'ome?" And for the life of me I couldn't answer. After more than a year in the British service I could not, on the spur of the moment, say exactly why I was there. To be perfectly frank with myself and with the reader I had no very lofty motives when I took the King's shilling. When the great war broke out, I was mildly sympathetic with England, and mighty sorry in an indefinite way for France and Belgium; but my sympathies were not strong enough in any direction to get me into uniform with a chance of being killed. Nor, at first, was I able to work up any compelling hate for Germany. The abstract idea of democracy did not figure in my calculations at all. However, as the war went on, it became apparent to me, as I suppose it must have to everybody, that the world was going through one of its epochal upheavals; and I figured that with so much history in the making, any unattached young man would be missing it if he did not take a part in the big game. I had the fondness for adventure usual in young men. I liked to see the wheels go round. And so it happened that, when the war was about a year and a half old, I decided to get in before it was too late. On second thought I won't say that it was purely love for adventure that took me across. There may have been in the back of my head a sneaking extra fondness for France, perhaps instinctive, for I was born in Paris, although my parents were American and I was brought to Boston as a baby and have lived here since.