The Somme, Including Also The CowardFirst published in London in 1927, The Somme and its companion, The Coward, constitute the only published literary achievements of A. D. Gristwood, a reluctant accountant turned even more reluctant infantryman in the London Rifle Brigade who later fell under the tutelage of master storyteller H. G. Wells. Heavily autobiographical and much influenced by Wells's guidance, Gristwood's tales of World War I combat are rife with acts of unheroic self-preservation and colored with the fear, bitterness, and hopelessness that defined the author's wartime experience. The central characters of these accounts are clever outsiders-disillusioned and grim foot soldiers amid foolishly dutiful comrades-who are placed in dire circumstances where survival mandates acts of horrific selfishness in lieu of valor. |
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Common terms and phrases
A. D. Gristwood aid-post ambulance Amigny Army attack Bapaume barrage battalion battle beneath blankets Blighty bombardment British army broken bully-beef carried casualties Chauny cheerful chum cigarettes clearing-station Company courage Coward crowded curses danger darkness dead desperate ditch dozed dozen dug-out dusk earth empty enemy Everitt found explosion eyes face fear fell felt field-ambulance fire forward front Germans glow of hope grew ground Guillemont guns hand horror hundred yards journey knew Lewis gun Loamshires London Rifle machine-guns Military Cross minutes muddy Myers never night Noyon o'clock once orderlies pain parapet passed perhaps rations reached rear rest road Rouen rumours seemed sentries shattered shells shelter shrapnel side sleep slowly smoke soldiers someone Somme soon story stretcher-bearers stretchers stumbling things Thomas à Kempis to-morrow told train trench Trones Wood Trouville Verey lights village waiting Western Front wire wounded