Originally published under the pseudonym “Platoon Commander”

these excellent memoirs were written by the noted novelist Arthur F. H. Mills after his service in the British Expeditionary Force in 1914-1915.

Following on from Mill’s service in France, he describes his days recuperating from the debilitating wounds he received at La Bassée. His first stop is a field hospital behind the front lines where his leg wound was tended to and a bullet removed; when he was able he was sent on to England. His experiences in the officer’s wards of both the army and private hospitals are at once grim and humorous, absent is the disillusionment noted in many memoirs written well after the war.