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GRAPES OF WRATH




  GRAPES OF
  WRATH

  BY

  BOYD CABLE

  AUTHOR OF
  "BETWEEN THE LINES," "ACTION FRONT,"
  AND "DOING THEIR BIT"

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK
  E. P. DUTTON & CO.
  681 FIFTH AVENUE




  COPYRIGHT, 1917,
  BY
  E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY

  Printed in the United States of America




  _TO
  ALL RANKS OF THE NEW ARMIES_


    _Men of the Old Country, Men of the Overseas, and those good men
    among the Neutrals who put all else aside to join up and help us to
    Victory, this book is dedicated with pride and admiration by_

              _THE AUTHOR_

      _In the Field,
  20th January, 1917_




THE AUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGMENT


Acknowledgments are due to the Editors of _The Cornhill Magazine_,
_Land and Water_, and _Pearson's Magazine_ for permission to reprint
such portions of this book as have appeared in their pages.




[Illustration]




BOYD CABLE--A PREFATORY NOTE


The readers of Boyd Cable's "Between the Lines," "Action Front," and
"Doing Their Bit," have very naturally had their curiosity excited
as to an author who, previously unheard of, has suddenly become the
foremost word-painter of active fighting at the present day, and the
greatest "literary discovery" of the War.

Boyd Cable is primarily a man of action; and for half of his not very
long life he has been doing things instead of writing them. At the
age of twenty he joined a corps of Scouts in the Boer War, and saw
plenty of fighting in South Africa. After the close of that war, his
life consisted largely of traveling in Great Britain and the principal
countries of Europe and the Mediterranean, his choice always leading
him from the beaten track. He also spent some time in Australia
and in New Zealand, not only in the cities, but in the outposts of
civilization, on the edge of the wilderness, both there and in the
Philippines, Java, and other islands of the Pacific.

When he travels, Mr. Cable does not merely take a steamer-berth or
a railway-ticket and write up his notes from an observation car or
a saloon deck. He looks out after a job, and puts plenty of energy
into it while he is at it; in fact, so many different things has he
done, that he says himself that it is easier to mention the things he
has not done than the ones he has. He has been an ordinary seaman,
typewriter agent, a steamer-fireman, office-manager, hobo, farmhand,
gold prospector, coach-driver, navvy, engine-driver, and many other
things. And strangely enough, though he knows so much from practical
experience, he has, until recently, never thought of writing down what
he has seen.

Before this present War, he was on the staff of a London advertising
agency. At the outbreak of hostilities, he offered his services and was
accepted in 1914, being one of the first men not in the regular army to
get a commission and be sent to the front.

It was his experience as "Forward Officer" (or observation officer
in the artillery) that gave him the material which he began to use in
"Between the Lines."

In this dangerous and responsible position, his daily life of literally
"hairbreadth" escapes afforded him experiences as thrilling as any he
has described in his books. On one occasion, for instance, when his
position had been "spotted" by enemy sharp-shooters, he got a bullet
through his cap, one through his shoulder-strap, one through the inside
of his sleeve close to his heart, and fifty-three others near enough
for him to hear them pass--all in less than an hour.

After eighteen months of this death-defying work, without even a
wound, Mr. Boyd Cable was naturally disgusted at being invalided home
on account of stomach trouble; but it was only this enforced leisure
that gave him really time to take up writing seriously. As may be
remembered, the British Government selected him officially to