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MUD AND KHAKI




MUD AND KHAKI

SKETCHES FROM FLANDERS
AND FRANCE

BY

VERNON BARTLETT


SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON,
KENT & CO. LTD., 4 STATIONERS'
HALL COURT : : LONDON, E.C.


_Copyright_
_First published April 1917_


TO

R.V.K.C.

AND MY OTHER FRIENDS

IN THE REGIMENT




APOLOGIA


There has been so much written about the trenches, there are so many war
photographs, so many cinema films, that one might well hesitate before
even mentioning the war--to try to write a book about it is, I fear, to
incur the censure of the many who are tired of hearing about bombs and
bullets, and who prefer to read of peace, and games, and flirtations.

But, for that very reason, I venture to think that even so indifferent a
war book as mine will not come entirely amiss. When the Lean Years are
over, when the rifle becomes rusty, and the khaki is pushed away in some
remote cupboard, there is great danger that the hardships of the men in
the trenches will too soon be forgotten. If, to a minute extent,
anything in these pages should help to bring home to people what war
really is, and to remind them of their debt of gratitude, then these
little sketches will have justified their existence.

Besides, I am not entirely responsible for this little book. Not long
ago, I met a man--fit, single, and young--who began to grumble to me of
the hardships of his "funkhole" in England, and, incidentally, to
belittle the hardships of the man at the front. After I had told him
exactly what I thought of him, I was still so indignant that I came home
and began to write a book about the trenches. Hence _Mud and Khaki_. To
him, then, the blame for this minor horror of war. I wash my hands of
it.

And I try to push the blame off on to him, for I realise that I have
undertaken an impossible task--the most practised pen cannot convey a
real notion of the life at the front, as the words to describe war do
not exist. Even you who have lost your husbands and brothers, your
fathers and sons, can have but the vaguest impression of the cruel,
thirsty claws that claimed them as victims. First must you see the
shattered cottages of France and Belgium, the way in which the women
clung to their homes in burning Ypres, the long streams of refugees
wheeling their poor little _lares et penates_, their meagre treasures,
on trucks and handcarts; first must you listen to the cheery joke that
the Angel of Death finds on the lips of the soldier, to the songs that
encourage you in the dogged marches through the dark and the mud, to the
talk during the long nights when the men collect round the brazier fire
and think of their wives and kiddies at home, of murky streets in the
East End, of quiet country inns where the farmers gather of an evening.

No words, then, can give an exact picture of these things, but they may
help to give colour to your impressions. Heaven forbid that, by telling
the horrors of war, the writers of books should make pessimists of those
at home! Heaven forbid that they should belittle the dangers and
hardships, and so take away some of the glory due to "Tommy" for all he
has suffered for the Motherland! There is a happy mean--the men at the
front have found it; they know that death is near, but they can still
laugh and sing.

In these sketches and stories I have tried, with but little success, to
keep that happy mean in view. If the pictures are very feeble in design
when compared to the many other, and far better, works on the same
subject, remember, reader, that the intention is good, and accept this
apology for wasting your time.

A few of these sketches and articles have already appeared elsewhere. My
best thanks are due to the Editors of the _Daily Mail_ and the _Daily
Mirror_ for their kind permission to include several sketches which
appeared, in condensed forms, in their papers. I am also grateful to the
Editor of Cassell's _Storyteller_ for his permission to reproduce "The
Knut," which first saw print in that periodical