Chapter I: Front Matter

GRAPES OF WRATH

GRAPES OF
WRATH

BY

BOYD CABLE

AUTHOR OF
“BETWEEN THE LINES,” “ACTION FRONT,”
AND “DOING THEIR BIT”

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & CO.
681 FIFTH AVENUE

COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

_TO
ALL RANKS OF THE NEW ARMIES_

_Men of the Old Country, Men of the Overseas, and those good men
among the Neutrals who put all else aside to join up and help us to
Victory, this book is dedicated with pride and admiration by_

_THE AUTHOR_

_In the Field,
20th January, 1917_

THE AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Acknowledgments are due to the Editors of _The Cornhill Magazine_, _Land and Water_, and _Pearson’s Magazine_ for permission to reprint such portions of this book as have appeared in their pages.

BOYD CABLE--A PREFATORY NOTE

The readers of Boyd Cable’s “Between the Lines,” “Action Front,” and “Doing Their Bit,” have very naturally had their curiosity excited as to an author who, previously unheard of, has suddenly become the foremost word-painter of active fighting at the present day, and the greatest “literary discovery” of the War.

Boyd Cable is primarily a man of action; and for half of his not very long life he has been doing things instead of writing them. At the age of twenty he joined a corps of Scouts in the Boer War, and saw plenty of fighting in South Africa. After the close of that war, his life consisted largely of traveling in Great Britain and the principal countries of Europe and the Mediterranean, his choice always leading him from the beaten track. He also spent some time in Australia and in New Zealand, not only in the cities, but in the outposts of civilization, on the edge of the wilderness, both there and in the Philippines, Java, and other islands of the Pacific.

When he travels, Mr. Cable does not merely take a steamer-berth or a railway-ticket and write up his notes from an observation car or a saloon deck. He looks out after a job, and puts plenty of energy into it while he is at it; in fact, so many different things has he done, that he says himself that it is easier to mention the things he has not done than the ones he has. He has been an ordinary seaman, typewriter agent, a steamer-fireman, office-manager, hobo, farmhand, gold prospector, coach-driver, navvy, engine-driver, and many other things. And strangely enough, though he knows so much from practical experience, he has, until recently, never thought of writing down what he has seen.

Before this present War, he was on the staff of a London advertising agency. At the outbreak of hostilities, he offered his services and was accepted in 1914, being one of the first men not in the regular army to get a commission and be sent to the front.

It was his experience as “Forward Officer” (or observation officer in the artillery) that gave him the material which he began to use in “Between the Lines.”

In this dangerous and responsible position, his daily life of literally “hairbreadth” escapes afforded him experiences as thrilling as any he has described in his books. On one occasion, for instance, when his position had been “spotted” by enemy sharp-shooters, he got a bullet through his cap, one through his shoulder-strap, one through the inside of his sleeve close to his heart, and fifty-three others near enough for him to hear them pass--all in less than an hour.

After eighteen months of this death-defying work, without even a wound, Mr. Boyd Cable was naturally disgusted at being invalided home on account of stomach trouble; but it was only this enforced leisure that gave him really time to take up writing seriously. As may be remembered, the British Government selected him officially to make the rounds of the munition factories and write an account of what was being done in them, with the purpose of circulating it among the men at the front, to let them see that the workers at home were “doing their bit.”

The following letter has just been received from Mr. Boyd Cable by the publishers, and they venture to include it here, entirely without the writer’s consent (since that would be impossible to get within the necessary time), and fully realizing that the letter was not written with a view to publication. They feel that it will give the reader an intimate view of the author, such as no amount of description or explanation could do.

“... Many thanks for all the trouble you have taken trying to place
my stories in magazines. It certainly is odd that British in U. S.
A. are not more interested in the war. I only hope the States won’t
have one of its own to be interested in, but honestly I expect it
within very few years.

I am very glad you like “Grapes of Wrath” and hope the further
chapters (which Smith, Elder & Company tell me they have sent
you) will equally please. I may not tell you where I am or what
I’m doing since the Censor forbids, but may just say that since I
came out again I’ve seen plenty of the Somme “Push” and have been
able to make “Grapes of Wrath” the more accurate and up to date in
details.

Now we’re all awaiting the Spring with full anticipations of going
in for the last round and the knock-out to Germany. We’re all very
confident she can’t stand the pace we’ve set for next year.

We’re having some bitter weather--fierce cold and wet and snow, but
we’re putting up with it, more or less cheered by the assurance
that the Huns are feeling it every bit as bad as we are and
probably a bit worse.

With all regards and every good wish for the coming year....”

It only remains to add that the importance of Mr. Boyd Cable’s work may be judged by the fact that of “Between the Lines” considerably over a hundred thousand copies have been printed in Great Britain alone.

THE PUBLISHERS.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. TOWARDS THE PUSH 15

II. THE OVERTURE OF THE GUNS 26

III. THE EDGE OF BATTLE 37

IV. ACROSS THE OPEN 50

V. ON CAPTURED GROUND 69

VI. TAKING PUNISHMENT 79

VII. BLIND MAN’S BUFF 98

VIII. OVER THE TOP 112

IX. A SIDE SHOW 134

X. THE COUNTER ATTACK 152

XI. FORWARD OBSERVING 179

XII. A VILLAGE AND A HELMET 201

XIII. WITH THE TANKS 229

XIV. THE BATTLE HYMN 244

XV. CASUALTIES 253

XVI. PLAY OUT THE GAME 275

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

_Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fatal lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on._

_I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps:
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on._

_I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel!
Since God is marching on!_

_He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat,
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on._

_In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on._

_He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave;
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is succor to the brave;
So the world shall be His footstool and the soul of time His slave:
Our God is marching on._

JULIA WARD HOWE.

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

It is possible that this book may be taken for an actual account of the Somme battle, but I warn readers that although it is in the bulk based on the fighting there and is no doubt colored by the fact that the greater part of it was written in the Somme area or between visits to it, I make no claim for it as history or as an historical account. My ambition was the much lesser one of describing as well as I could what a Big Push is like from the point of view of an ordinary average infantry private, of showing how much he sees and knows and suffers in a great battle, of giving a glimpse perhaps of the spirit that animates the New Armies, the endurance that has made them more than a match for the Germans, the acceptance of appalling and impossible horrors as the work-a-day business and routine of battle, the discipline and training that has fused such a mixture of material into tempered fighting metal.

For the tale itself, I have tried to put into words merely the sort of story that might and could be told by thousands of our men to-day. I hope, in fact, I have so “told the tale” that such men as I have written of may be able to put this book in your hands and say: “This chapter just describes our crossing the open,” or “That is how we were shelled,” or “I felt the same about my Blighty one.”

It may be that before this book is complete in print another, a greater, a longer and bloodier, and a last battle may be begun, and I wish this book may indicate the kind of men who will be fighting it, the stout hearts they will bring to the fight, the manner of faith and assurance they will feel in Victory, complete and final to the gaining of such Peace terms as we may demand.

THE AUTHOR.

In the Field
20th January, 1917.

GRAPES OF WRATH