WHEN I WAS A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND




FOREWORD


I have tried as an American in writing this book to give the public
a complete view of the trenches and life on the Western Front as it
appeared to me, and also my impression of conditions and men as I
found them. It has been a pleasure to write it, and now that I have
finished I am genuinely sorry that I cannot go further. On the
lecture tour I find that people ask me questions, and I have tried
in this book to give in detail many things about the quieter side
of war that to an audience would seem too tame. I feel that the
public want to know how the soldiers live when not in the trenches,
for all the time out there is not spent in killing and carnage. As
in the case of all men in the trenches, I heard things and stories
that especially impressed me, so I have written them as hearsay,
not taking to myself credit as their originator. I trust that the
reader will find as much joy in the cockney character as I did and
which I have tried to show the public; let me say now that no finer
body of men than those Bermondsey boys of my battalion could be
found.

I think it fair to say that in compiling the trench terms at the
end of this book I have not copied any war book, but I have given
in each case my own version of the words, though I will confess
that the idea and necessity of having such a list sprang from