Alas, there are few left now to read these words. The war continues. Of the survivors a half have still to serve. For me, my fighting days are done. I am not sorry. Whatever ideas I had as a cadet, this war has taught me that fighting is too fierce and heart-racking to be a sport or anything except a duty.
These sketches of war as I saw it I write once more by the banks of the upper reaches of the Thames, calm and beautiful with her fringe of browning leaves, as she was stately and magnificent in full midsummer a year before. Now autumn has come and the dead leaves lie in the golden sunlight.
Of my brother officers, who read these words, I ask only the kindly tolerance they have always shown. Should they recognize themselves in deeds described, and find fault with the accuracy of the account, will they remember that it is difficult to give chapter and verse without notes to refer to. And for notes, I think all will agree that to have taken them for such a purpose while out there would have been a waste of time.
"Platoon Commander."
I. TAKING OUT A DRAFT
I was sitting drinking a gin-and-bitters in the lounge of the big hotel facing the sea when Mulligan came dashing in.
"I say, you're wanted back at the barracks at once. You've got to come out with me with the draft to-night."
"All right, old son, have a gin-and-bitters anyway. What time does the train start?"
"In an hour's time—seven o'clock," said Mulligan, still much excited, but not, however, making any attempt to move away as the waiter approached.
"Well, here's to the enterprise and our handsome selves," he said a few minutes later, raising his glass.