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┌───────────────────────────────┐ │ BY THE SAME AUTHOR │ ├───────────────────────────────┤ │ BETWEEN THE LINES, Net, $1.50 │ │ ACTION FRONT, Net, $1.50 │ │ DOING THEIR BIT, Net, $1.25 │ │ GRAPES OF WRATH, Net, $1.50 │ ├───────────────────────────────┤ │ E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY │ │ NEW YORK │ └───────────────────────────────┘
AUTHOR OF “BETWEEN THE LINES,” “ACTION FRONT,” “GRAPES OF WRATH”
NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
THESE LINES, WRITTEN AT AND TELLING ABOUT THE FRONT, ARE DEDICATED—WITH THE FERVENT WISH THAT THOSE THERE MAY SOON SEE THE LAST OF IT—TO THE FRONT, BY
THESE tales have been written over a period running from the later stages of the Somme to the present time. For the book I have two ambitions—the first, that to my Service readers it may bring a few hours of interest and entertainment, may prove some sort of a picture and a record of what they themselves have been through; the second, that it may strike and impress and stir those people at home who even now clearly require awakening to all that war means.
I know that a great many war workers have been, and still are, bearing cheerfully and willingly the long strain of war work, and I very gladly and thankfully offer my testimony to what I have seen of this good spirit. But it would be idle to deny, since the proofs have been too plain, that many war workers are not doing their best and utmost, are not playing the game as they might do and ought to do, and it is to these in particular I hope this book may speak.
Surely by now every worker might appreciate the fact that whatever good cause they may have for “war weariness” they are at least infinitely better off than any man in the firing line; surely they can understand how bitter men here feel when they hear and read of all these manifestations of labour “discontent” and “unrest.” We know well how dependent we are on the efforts of the workers at home, and there are times when we are forced to the belief that some workers also know it and trade on it for their own benefit, are either woefully ignorant still of what the failure of their fullest effort means to us, or, worse, are indifferent to the sufferings and endurings of their men on active service, are unpatriotic, narrow, selfish enough to put the screw on the nation for their own advantage.