MANY FRONTS MANY FRONTS BY LEWIS R. FREEMAN LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1918 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTENTS PAGE THE FIGHT FOR THE GARDEN OF EDEN 7 IT’S A WAY THEY HAVE IN THE AIR CORPS 38 SHARKS OF THE AIR 66 TO BRITISH MERCHANT CAPTAINS 96 THE PASSING OF A ZEPPELIN 112 FIGHTING FOR SERBIA 128 BEATING BACK FROM GERMANY 156 THE SINGING SOLDIER 192 BLOWING UP THE CASTELLETTO 219 WONDERS OF THE TELEFERICA 246 THE GARIBALDI FIGHT AGAIN FOR FREEDOM 280 My grateful acknowledgments are due to the several magazines in which these stories and sketches have appeared:--_The Cornhill Magazine_, _Land and Water_, and _The World’s Work_ in England; and in America, _The Atlantic Monthly_, _The World’s Work_, and _The Outlook_. L. R. F. _October, 1918._ MANY FRONTS THE FIGHT FOR THE GARDEN OF EDEN I I had known F---- through years of hunting and sports in India, but never until the night that our old British-India coaster lay off the Shat-el-Arab bar waiting for the turn of the tide to run up to Bassorah, did I hear him speak of the things that were really next his heart. Then it was that I was vouchsafed transient vision of the outer strands of the previsionary web England was weaving beyond the marches of India against events to come. I will give his story, as nearly as I can remember, in his own words. * * * * * For the best part of the last five years [said he], I have been coming to Arabia and Mesopotamia on “language study.” In all of that time I have not been back to England, and I am almost a stranger to the officers of my own regiment. I talk like an Arab, I am beginning to think like an Arab, and, what with sunlight and dirt that have gone so deep under my epidermis that they will never come out, I shall soon look like an Arab. Perhaps in time--you’d never believe the appeal of the Koran till you’ve bowed toward Mecca, with a Bedouin on either side of you, morning and evening, for six months at a stretch--I shall pray like an Arab. I have had smallpox, dysentery,--which has become practically chronic,--and a dozen varieties of fevers and skin diseases, and I’m mottled from head to foot with “Aleppo button” scars, two of which have never healed. I’ve been alone so much that I talk to myself even in Calcutta and Simla. The Persians in this region distrust me, the Russians and Germans hate me, and the Turks are perfectly frank in saying that they will send me on “the long pilgrimage” if ever a fair chance offers.