Over the Top

Over the Top

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Title: Over The Top
Author: Arthur Guy Empey
Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7962] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 6, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER THE TOP ***

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 colored 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