



Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
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CAPTAIN MACKLIN

HIS MEMOIRS

By Richard Harding Davis

Illustrated By Walter Appleton Clark


{Illustration: "Go, Royal!" he cried, "and--God bless you!"}


To MY MOTHER




ILLUSTRATIONS (not available in this file)

"Go, Royal!" he cried, "and--God bless you!" FRONTISPIECE

He made our meeting something of a ceremony

We walked out to the woods

I was sure life in Sagua la Grande would always suit me

The moon rose over the camp... but still we sat

And the next instant I fell sprawling inside the barrack yard

I sprang back against the cabin




I


UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY, WEST POINT

It may seem presumptuous that so young a man as myself should propose
to write his life and memoirs, for, as a rule, one waits until he has
accomplished something in the world, or until he has reached old age,
before he ventures to tell of the times in which he has lived, and of
his part in them. But the profession to which I belong, which is that
of a soldier, and which is the noblest profession a man can follow, is a
hazardous one, and were I to delay until to-morrow to write down what
I have seen and done, these memoirs might never be written, for, such
being the fortune of war, to-morrow might not come.

So I propose to tell now of the little I have accomplished in the first
twenty-three years of my life, and, from month to month, to add to these
memoirs in