First Published in 1917
First Published in 1917
PREFACE
There is no attempt made in the little sketches which this book contains to deal historically with events of the war. It is but a smallSouvenir de la guerre—a series of vignettes of things as they struck me at the time, and later. I have written of types, not of individuals, and less of action than of rest. The horror of war at its worst is fit subject for a master hand alone.
I have to thank the proprietors ofThe Globefor their courtesy in allowing the reproduction of “Canvas and Mud” and “Tent Music,” and of theCanadian Magazinefor the reproduction of “Martha of Dranvoorde.”
Finally, I feel that I can have no greater honour than humbly to dedicate this bookto the officers, N.C.O.’s and men of the First Canadian Infantry Battalion, Ontario Regiment, with whom I have spent some of the happiest, as well as some of the hardest, days of my life.
RALPH W. BELL.
December 11th, 1916.