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Men, Women and Guns By: H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile (1888-1937) |
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"SAPPER"
MEN, WOMEN AND GUNS BY
"SAPPER"
AUTHOR OF "MICHAEL CASSIDY, SERGEANT" NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1916,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO
MY WIFE
CONTENTS PAGE
PROLOGUE xi PART ONE
CHAPTER
I. THE MOTOR GUN 23
II. PRIVATE MEYRICK COMPANY IDIOT 49
III. SPUD TREVOR OF THE RED HUSSARS 77
IV. THE FATAL SECOND 99
V. JIM BRENT'S V.C. 121
VI. RETRIBUTION 155
VII. THE DEATH GRIP 183
VIII. JAMES HENRY 211 PART TWO
THE LAND OF THE TOPSY TURVY
I. THE GREY HOUSE 237
II. THE WOMEN AND THE MEN 243
III. THE WOMAN AND THE MAN 249
IV. "THE REGIMENT" 257
V. THE CONTRAST 265
VI. BLACK, WHITE, AND GREY 271
VII. ARCHIE AND OTHERS 287
VIII. ON THE STAFF 291
IX. NO ANSWER 299
X. THE MADNESS 305
XI. THE GREY HOUSE AGAIN 311
PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
Two days ago a dear old aunt of mine asked me to describe to her what
shrapnel was like. "What does it feel like to be shelled?" she demanded. "Explain it to
me." Under the influence of my deceased uncle's most excellent port I did so.
Soothed and in that expansive frame of mind induced by the old and bold,
I drew her a picture vivid, startling, wonderful. And when I had
finished, the dear old lady looked at me. "Dreadful!" she murmured. "Did I ever tell you of the terrible
experience I had on the front at Eastbourne, when my bath chair
attendant became inebriated and upset me?" Slowly and sorrowfully I finished the decanter and went to bed. But seriously, my masters, it is a hard thing that my aunt asked of me.
There are many things worse than shelling the tea party you find in
progress on your arrival on leave; the utterances of war experts; the
non arrival of the whisky from England. But all of those can be imagined
by people who have not suffered; they have a standard, a measure of
comparison. Shelling no. The explosion of a howitzer shell near you is a definite, actual
fact which is unlike any other fact in the world, except the explosion
of another howitzer shell still nearer. Many have attempted to describe
the noise it makes as the most explainable part about it. And then
you're no wiser. Listen. Stand with me at the Menin Gate of Ypres and listen. Through a
cutting a train is roaring on its way. Rapidly it rises in a great
swelling crescendo as it dashes into the open, and then its journey
stops on some giant battlement stops in a peal of deafening thunder
just overhead. The shell has burst, and the echoes in that town of death
die slowly away reverberating like a sullen sea that lashes against a
rock bound coast. And yet what does it convey to anyone who patronises inebriated
bath chair men? ... Similarly shrapnel! "The Germans were searching the road with
'whizz bangs.'" A common remark, an ordinary utterance in a letter,
taken by fond parents as an unpleasing affair such as the cook giving
notice. Come with me to a spot near Ypres; come, and we will take our evening
walk together. "They're a bit lively farther up the road, sir." The corporal of
military police stands gloomily at a cross roads, his back against a
small wayside shrine. A passing shell unroofed it many weeks ago; it
stands there surrounded by débris the image of the Virgin, chipped and
broken. Just a little monument of desolation in a ruined country, but
pleasant to lean against when it's between you and German guns. Let us go on, it's some way yet before we reach the dug out by the third
dead horse. In front of us stretches a long, straight road, flanked on
each side by poplars... Continue reading book >>
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