Leaves from a Field Note-Book

Leaves from a Field Note-Book

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Title: Leaves from a Field Note-Book
Author: J. H. Morgan
Release Date: March 13, 2006 [EBook #17978]
Language: English
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LEAVES FROM A FIELD NOTE-BOOK
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO

LEAVES FROM A FIELD NOTE-BOOK
BY
J.H. MORGAN
LATE HOME OFFICE COMMISSIONER WITH THE BRITISH
EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
"And my delights were with the sons of men."
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1916

TO
LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR C.F.N. MACREADY, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.
ADJUTANT-GENERAL TO THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY
FORCE

PREFACE

This book is an unofficial outcome of the writer's experiences during
the five months he was attached to the General Headquarters Staff as
Home Office Commissioner with the British Expeditionary Force. His
official duties during that period involved daily visits to the
headquarters of almost every Corps, Division, and Brigade in the Field,
and took him on one or two occasions to the batteries and into the
trenches. They necessarily involved a familiar and domestic
acquaintance with the work of two of the great departments of the Staff
at G.H.Q. So much of these experiences of the work of the Staff and of
the life of the Army in the field as it appears discreet to record is here
set down. The writer desires to express his acknowledgments to his
friends, Major E.A. Wallinger, Major F.C.T. Ewald, D.S.O., and
Captain W.A. Wallinger, for their kindness in reading the proofs of
some one or more of the chapters in this book. Nor would his
acknowledgments be complete without some word of thanks to that
brilliant soldier, Colonel E.D. Swinton, D.S.O., with whom he was
closely associated during the discharge of the official duties at G.H.Q.
of which this book is the unofficial outcome. Most of these chapters
originally appeared in the pages of the Nineteenth Century and After,
under the title to which the book owes its name, and the writer desires
to express his obligations to the Editor, Mr. Wray Skilbeck, for his kind
permission to republish them. Similar acknowledgments are due to the
Editor of Blackwood's Magazine for permission to reprint the short
story, "Stokes's Act," and to the Editor of the Westminster Gazette in
whose hospitable pages some of the shorter sketches
appeared--sometimes anonymously.
The reader will observe that many of these sketches appear in the form
of what, to borrow a French term, is called the conte. The writer has
adopted that form of literary expression as the most efficacious way of
suppressing his own personality; the obtrusion of which, in the form of
"Reminiscences," would, he feels, be altogether disproportionate and
impertinent in view of the magnitude and poignancy of the great events
amid which it was his privilege to live and move. Moreover, his own
duties were neither spirited nor glorious. But the characters pourtrayed
and the events narrated in these pages are true in substance and in fact.
The writer has not had the will, even if he had had the power, to

"improve" the occasions; the reality was too poignant for that. "Stokes's
Act" and "The Coming of the Hun" are therefore "true" stories--using
truth in the sense of veracity not value--and the facts came within the
writer's own investigation. The investiture of fiction has been here
adopted for the obvious reason that neither of the principal characters in
these two stories would desire his name to be known. So, too, in the
other sketches, although the characters are "real"--I can only hope that
they will be half as real to the reader as they were and are to me--the
names are assumed.
It is my privilege to inscribe this little book to Lieut.-General Sir C.F.N.
Macready, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., to whose staff I was attached and to
whose friendship, encouragement, and hospitality I owe a debt which
no words can discharge.
J. H. M.
January 1916.

CONTENTS
I
THE BASE PAGE I. BOBS BAHADUR 3 II. AT THE BASE DEPÔT
11 III. THE WILTSHIRES 17 IV. THE BASE 26 V. A COUNCIL OF
INDIA 36 VI. THE TROOP TRAIN 45
II
THE FRONT