E-text prepared by Rick Niles, Josephine Paolucci, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 16685-h.htm or 16685-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/6/8/16685/16685-h/16685-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/6/8/16685/16685-h.zip) PRIVATE PEAT by HAROLD R. PEAT Ex-Third Battalion First Canadian Contingent Profusely Illustrated with Photographic Reproductions Taken at the Front. Also with Scenes from the Photo-Play of the Same Name Released by Famous Players--Lasky Corporation New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers The Bobbs-Merrill Company 1917 [Illustration: Private Peat Still smiling though his right arm is useless] _To the boys who will never come back_ FOREWORD In this record of my experiences as a private in the great war I have tried to put the emphasis on the things that seemed to me important. It is true I set out to write a book of smiles, but the seriousness of it all came back to me and crept into my pages. Yet I hope, along with the grimness and the humor, I have been able to say some words of cheer and comfort to those in the United States who are sending their husbands, their sons and brothers into this mighty conflict. The book, unsatisfactory as it is to me now that it is finished, at least holds my honest and long considered opinions. It was not written until I could view my experiences objectively, until I was sure in my own mind that the judgments I had formed were sane and sound. I give it to the public now, hoping that something new will be found in it, despite the many personal narratives that have gone before, and confident that out of that public the many friends I have made while lecturing over the country will look on it with a lenient and a kindly eye. To my wife, who has helped me greatly and who has been my inspiration in this, as in all else, I should have inscribed this volume had she not urged the present dedication. But she prefers it as it is, for "the boys who will never come back" gave themselves for her and for all sister-women the world over. H.R.P. CONTENTS Chapter I THE CALL--TO ARMS II IN THE OLD COUNTRY III BACK TO CANADA--I DON'T THINK IV ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? NO! V UNDER FIRE VI THE MAD MAJOR VII WHO STARTED THE WAR? VIII "AND OUT OF EVIL THERE SHALL COME THAT WHICH IS GOOD" IX ALL FUSSED UP AND NO PLACE TO GO X HELLO! SKY-PILOT! XI VIVE LA FRANCE ET AL BELGE! XII CANADIANS--THAT'S ALL XIII TEARS AND NO CHEERS XIV "THE BEST O' LUCK--AND GIVE 'EM HELL!" XV OUT OF IT XVI GERMAN TERMINOLOGICAL INEXACTITUDES XVII THE LAST CHAPTER THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF A SOLDIER WHILE ON ACTIVE SERVICE SOME THINGS THAT WE OUGHT AND OUGHT NOT TO SEND PRIVATE PEAT