



Produced by Daniel Callahan









"OVER THE TOP"

BY

AN AMERICAN SOLDIER WHO WENT

ARTHUR GUY EMPEY

MACHINE GUNNER, SERVING IN FRANCE

TOGETHER WITH

TOMMY'S DICTIONARY OF THE TRENCHES

16 ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIAGRAMS



Twenty-sixth Impression


{Photo: The Author just before Leaving for Home.}


TO

MY MOTHER AND MY SISTER

I have had many good comrades as I have journeyed around the world,
before the mast and in the trenches, but loyal and true as they were,
none have ever done, or could ever do, as much as you have done for
me. So as a little token of my gratitude for your love and sacrifice I
dedicate this book to you.



FOREWORD

During sixteen years of "roughing it," knocking around the world, I
have nibbed against the high and low and have had ample opportunity of
studying, at close range, many different peoples, their ideals,
political and otherwise, their hopes and principles. Through this
elbow rubbing, and not from reading, I have become convinced of the
nobility, truth, and justice of the Allies' cause, and know their
fight to be our fight, because it espouses the principles of the
United States of America, democracy, justice, and liberty.

To the average American who has not lived and fought with him, the
Englishman appears to be distant, reserved, a slow thinker, and
lacking in humor, but from my association with the man who inhabits
the British Isles. I find that this opinion is unjust. To me, Tommy
Atkins has proved himself to be the best of mates, a pal, and bubbling
over with a fine sense of humor, a man with a just cause who is
willing to sacrifice everything but honor in the advancement of the
same.

It is my fondest hope that Uncle Sam and John Bull, arms locked, as
mates, good and true, each knowing and appreciating the worth of the
other, will wend their way through the years to come, happy and
contented in each other's company. So if this poor attempt of mine
will, in any way, help to bring Tommy Atkins closer to the doorstep of
Uncle Sam, my ambition will have been realized.

Perhaps to some of my readers it will appear that I have written of a
great and just cause in a somewhat flippant manner, but I assure them
such was not my intention. I have tried to tell my experiences in the
language of Tommy sitting on the fire step of a front-line trench on
the Western Front--just as he would tell his mate next him what was
happening at a different part of the line.

A. G. E.

NEW YORK City, May, 1917.



CHAPTER I

FROM MUFTI TO KHAKI

It was in an office in Jersey City. I was sitting at my desk talking
to a Lieutenant of the Jersey National Guard. On the wall was a big
war map decorated with variously  little flags showing the
position of the opposing armies on the Western Front in France. In
front of me on the desk lay a New York paper with big flaring
headlines:

LUSITANIA SUNK! AMERICAN LIVES LOST!

The windows were open and a feeling of spring pervaded the air.
Through the open windows came the strains of a hurdy-gurdy playing in
the street--I DIDN'T RAISE MY BOY TO BE A SOLDIER.

"Lusitania Sunk! American Lives Lost!"--I DIDN'T RAISE MY BOY TO BE
A SOLDIER. To us these did not seem to jibe.

The Lieutenant in silence opened one of the lower drawers of his desk
and took from it an American flag which he solemnly draped over the
war map on the wall. Then, turning to me with a grim face, said:

"How about it, Sergeant? You had better get out the muster roll of the
Mounted Scouts, as I think they will be needed in the course of a few
days."

We busied ourselves till late in the evening writing out emergency
telegrams for the men to report when the call should come from
Washington. Then we went home.

I crossed over to New York, and as I went up Fulton Street to take the
Subway to Brooklyn, the lights in the tall buildings of New York
seemed to be burning brighter than usual, as if they, too, had read
"Lusitania Sunk! American Lives Lost!" They seemed to be glowing with
anger and righteous indignation, and their rays wigwagged the message,
"REPAY!"

Months passed, the telegrams lying handy, but covered with dust. Then,
one momentous morning the Lieutenant with a sigh of disgust removed
the flag from the war map and returned to his desk. I immediately
followed this action by throwing the telegrams into the wastebasket.
Then we looked at each other in silence. He was squirming in his chair
and I felt depressed and uneasy.

The telephone rang and I answered it. It was a business call for me
requesting my