Harold Ashton was the War Correspondent of The Daily News during the First World War and reported extensively on the British army’s involvement in the conflict. Whether working alongside the British troops that were fighting on the frontline or in the trenches or accompanying the massive logistics operation behind the lines – be it the transporting of munitions and supplies or seeing at first hand the work of the Royal Army Medical Corps – he reported on the successes and failures, the tragedies and victories over the course of the war...

In this brief book I have lifted a very small corner of the curtain of war, to tell of my adventures — a week in the North Sea, and a breathless score of days in Northern France. I have touched upon both Tragedy and Comedy as they came my way. The tragedy is terrible enough - I have put it down plainly and unvarnished. From Tragedy to Comedy, it is but a step, along the gloomiest corridor of life one sees the flash of the cap and hears the rattle of the bells. Otherwise, it would be unbearable...

The sketches and stories in this little volume must be read as fiction. But they are all, or nearly all, founded on fact, and built up from scenes and incidents I myself either witnessed or heard, first-hand, during my sojourn in France and Flanders as Special Correspondent for a London morning newspaper. Private Pinkerton I met in the flesh several times—a gallant young English gentleman, if there ever was one, a cool and clever fighter, a dead shot, but shy as a schoolgirl when it came to the telling of his own adventures. I have rarely met a millionaire so engaging, so kindly, so well loved by 'the boys', but so courageous withal.