Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - I make no apology for having followed in this book the same plan as in my other one, "Between the Lines," of taking extracts from the official despatches as "texts" and endeavoring to show something of what these brief messages cover, because so many of my own friends, and so many more unknown friends amongst the reviewers, expressed themselves so pleased with the plan that I feel its repetition is justified. There were some who...

Boyd Cable (1878 - 1943) wrote Between the Lines about the Western Front in World War I. He wanted the people back home to know what really was happening not just what they heard from official sources. The book opens with a lookout listening for enemy footsteps in a rainstorm. "For perhaps the twentieth time in half an hour the look-out man in the advanced trench raised his head cautiously over the parapet and peered out into the darkness. A drizzling rain made it almost impossible to see beyond a few yards ahead, but then the German trench was not more than fifty yards off and the space...

This story of World War One is a harrowing account of that terrible conflict. In the words of the author: "There were some who complained that my last book was in parts too grim and too terrible, and no doubt the same complaint may lie against this one. To that I can only reply that I have found it impossible to write with any truth of the Front without the writing being grim."

For perhaps the twentieth time in half an hour the look-out man in the advanced trench raised his head cautiously over the parapet and peered out into the darkness. A drizzling rain made it almost impossible to see beyond a few yards ahead, but then the German trench was not more than fifty yards off and the space between was criss-crossed and interlaced and a-bristle with the tangle of barb-wire defences erected by both sides.

It was fiercely hot inside the hut, although the click and snap of the tin roof spoke of its cooling now that the sun was off it. The men eating their supper at the long deal table sat with shirt sleeves rolled up and collars open at the throat, and the sweat drops glistening on their browned faces, brick-red arms, and lean throats. In spite of the heat they ate hugely, as men do who have spent a long day in the saddle, and "Blazes," the cook, was kept busy replenishing the heaped-up plates.

When I came here from the Front a couple of months ago I remember looking out from the train and thinking how quiet and normal and peaceful the country looked. Driving from the train through London, the street crowds, although flecked and tinged with khaki, appeared to be going busily or lazily about their ordinary business or laziness, the people were shopping, or walking, or driving in buses or taxis as if they personally had still no more than a newspaper interest in the war, as if fighting or munition-making were matters concerning a certain section of mankind altogether apart from the...

Grapes of wrath By Boyd Cable is the life of a private soldier during World War I.

Grapes of Wrath: Large Print By Boyd Cable