Excerpt from The 54th Infantry Brigade, 1914-1918: Some Records of Battle and Laughter in France
The above heading is quite misleading. There has been no author - or, rather, there has been no one author, for this book is made up of the stories and recollections of all ranks. If it fell to one fellow"s lot to collect the stories and pass them on to the printer, that was simply his excuse for sitting and smoking in his billet whilst the rest of the Brigade were out on "salvage" during these last months in France.
The fact that the book is to be regarded as written by the Brigade itself, and not by any individual, explains why you will find, "We went forward here," or "We dug in there," on so many of the pages, as though the writer had been present on every occasion when the Brigade went into action. You must imagine this book written by the Spirit of the Brigade, which shared every tour in the line, went over with each battalion behind every barrage, and never missed a parade.
But even the Spirit of the Brigade has its limitations. Some who read this book will turn to a particular chapter and say, "Why, they"ve missed one of the best incidents in that fight"; or, "A very funny thing happened in that sector - pity it"s been left out." Well, that"s where it is better to drop all this talk about an omnipresent Spirit of the Brigade, and confess that we are only human, and that we could only put into this book the material that was received. Goodness knows we worried everyone we could get at for stories and recollections, and goodness knows everyone we worried was patient and kindly beyond words, and did his best to supply material for these pages. If we failed to get hold of what you believe to have been the best story of the whole campaign - well, sorry! Better luck next war!
One or two omissions have been unavoidable. Certain portraits should have been in this book, and every effort was made to get them, but up to the moment when the last pages had to go to press they had not been received. Also, it had been fully intended to print a full list - and it would have been a long and splendid one - of all the honours and awards gained by officers, non-commissioned officers, and men while serving with the Brigade.
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