We will be pleased to
receive copies of books
which are likely to in
terest ex-Service men
and members of the
heague, for review in the
pages of our Journal.
The Ypres Times.
175
BOOKS.
The Story of the 9th Kings in FranceBy H.
Glynne Roberts Northern Publishing Com
pany).
This book is an amplification of some notes that
were written at Maroeuil a month or two after
the Armistice was declared, and it is written
primarily for the officers and men who served with
the Regiment in France, and also that the parents
and relatives of the fallen may know something of
the Regiment.
The names of individuals belonging to the
Battalion, with the exception of the Commanding
Officers, have been omitted. Though a history
confined strictly to the doings of one battalion,
the author hopes that this book may prove of inte
rest to members of other units with whic!~ the
Battalion was from time to time brigaded.
The description of the regiment's work in the
3rd battle is excellent.
With Lancashire Lads and Field Guns in France,
1915-1918. By Major Neil Fraser-Tyler, D.S.O.
(W. J. Brown, Wokingham. 85. 6d.).
The following letters were written to his father
by a Gunner Officer in France between November,
1915, and August, 1918. They are often merely
records of trivial happenings, but they show what
a very mixed business modern war may bewith
its lights and shades, its tragedies and its comedies.
When reading them one finds oneself insensibly
entering into the spirit of the daily or nightly task
or the adventure or hazard that is on hand. Many
episodes are referred to in which others were inte
rested, and it is hoped that perhaps friends may
like to possess a record which in some cases un
happily refers to good soldiers gone west."
In their original form the letters were oftentimes
hurried, written under difficulties in dug-outs and
make-shift accommodationthey were also occa
sionally disconnected, so in order to present a fairly
coherent whole, the plan was adopted of grouping
them so that the reader may obtain at a glance a
general idea of the sector in which operations are
being described, and its bearing on the whole. As
the period during which they were written is
usually divided into spaces representing phases of
the War, it was found convenient to allot various
groups of letters to these phases, and it is hoped
that this would give the reader a means of find
ing his bearings," as it were. Place-names and
names of units have, of course, been added since
the letters were written.
The writer was given command of a R.F.A.
howitzer battery in October, 1915, and took it to
France in November of the same year. He landed
at Havre, and after some preliminary instructional
work with another brigade, took up a position on
the Northern bank of the Somme, which curiously
enough was the right of the line so far as the
field guns were concerned. His references to the
third battle of Ypres are most interesting.
Four Years on the Western Front, by Rifleman
(Odhams Press, Ltd.).We have here one of the
best books which has appeared on the subject and
we prophecy for it a life far beyond that of the
usual war book." The author depicts so faith
fully the damnableness, and so clearly the unsung
heroism, of an army private, whilst his adventures,
ranging from the front trenches at the Second
Battle of Ypress down to the Armistice, bring into
the mind's eye with such clarity the hard lot of
thousands of other hard-working heroic men in a
modern war as to turn the recital into a veritable
epic. Trench life under high-explosive, when there
was nothing but shrapnel in return the nightly
torture of transporting supplies, ammunition, food
and water to the men in the trenches through shell-
torn roads and bitterest rain and mud, trenches
which changed every night at timesthe aimless
orders, commanding and countermanding, as if in
sheer despite of common sense the discomforts of
short rations, filthy billets and mock bivvies in
pouring rain the jibbing of the author's horses,
Jack and Tar, and the fright of the grey Ginger
and the burly Samson while he was doing transport
work the shelling of the roads at night during the
hour-long blocks of traffic the gradual depletion
by deaths, disease and wastage of the old comrades
all are here blended into a completely fascinating
storytrue to the very core of the common soldier.
The narration is cleverly kept together by the re
cital of the chief events of the war, side by side with
the exploits of the L.R.B., and the whole gains by
the exclusion of any opinion higher than that of a
Sergeant. Many diaries have appeared of great
interest, but this, written with unrealised skill by
a modest erstwhile office clerk, will hold a high
place amongst the best literature of the Great War.
