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LEAVES FROM A FIELD NOTE-BOOK
BY
J. H. MORGAN
LATE HOME OFFICE COMMISSIONER WITH THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY
FORCE
"And my delights were with the sons of men."
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
1916

[Pg v]
TO
Lieut.-General Sir C.F.N. MACREADY, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.
ADJUTANT-GENERAL TO THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

[Pg vii]
PREFACE

This book is an unofficial outcome of the writer's experiences during the five months he was attached to the
General Headquarters Staff as Home Office Commissioner with the British Expeditionary Force. His official
duties during that period involved daily visits to the headquarters of almost every Corps, Division, and
Brigade in the Field, and took him on one or two occasions to the batteries and into the trenches. They
necessarily involved a familiar and domestic acquaintance with the work of two of the great departments of

LEAVES FROM A FIELD NOTE-BOOK
1

the Staff at G.H.Q. So much of these experiences of the work of the Staff and of the life of the Army in the
field as it appears discreet to record is here set down. The writer desires to express his acknowledgments to his
friends, Major E.A. Wallinger, Major F.C.T. Ewald, D.S.O., and Captain W.A. Wallinger, for their kindness
in reading the proofs of some one or more of the chapters in this book. Nor would his acknowledgments be
complete[Pg viii] without some word of thanks to that brilliant soldier, Colonel E.D. Swinton, D.S.O., with
whom he was closely associated during the discharge of the official duties at G.H.Q. of which this book is the
unofficial outcome. Most of these chapters originally appeared in the pages of the Nineteenth Century and

After, under the title to which the book owes its name, and the writer desires to express his obligations to the

Editor, Mr. Wray Skilbeck, for his kind permission to republish them. Similar acknowledgments are due to
the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine for permission to reprint the short story, "Stokes's Act," and to the Editor
of the Westminster Gazette in whose hospitable pages some of the shorter sketches appeared\u2014sometimes
anonymously.

The reader will observe that many of these sketches appear in the form of what, to borrow a French term, is
called theconte. The writer has adopted that form of literary expression as the most efficacious way of
suppressing his own personality; the obtrusion of which, in the form of "Reminiscences," would, he feels, be
altogether disproportionate and impertinent in view of the magnitude and poignancy of the great events amid
which it was his privilege to live and move. Moreover, his own duties were neither spirited nor glorious. But
the characters pourtrayed and the[Pg ix] events narrated in these pages are true in substance and in fact. The
writer has not had the will, even if he had had the power, to "improve" the occasions; the reality was too
poignant for that. "Stokes's Act" and "The Coming of the Hun" are therefore "true" stories\ue000using truth in the
sense of veracity not value\ue001and the facts came within the writer's own investigation. The investiture of
fiction has been here adopted for the obvious reason that neither of the principal characters in these two stories
would desire his name to be known. So, too, in the other sketches, although the characters are "real"\ue002I can
only hope that they will be half as real to the reader as they were and are to me\ue003the names are assumed.

It is my privilege to inscribe this little book to Lieut.-General Sir C.F.N. Macready, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., to whose staff I was attached and to whose friendship, encouragement, and hospitality I owe a debt which no words can discharge.

J. H. M.
January 1916.
[Pg xi]
CONTENTS
PREFACE
ITHE BASE
I. Bobs Bahadur
\u2022
II. At the Base Dep\u00f4t
\u2022
III. The Wiltshires
\u2022
IV. The Base
\u2022
V. A Council of India
\u2022
VI. The Troop Train
\u2022
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Leaves From A Field Note-book, by J.H. Morgan.
PREFACE
2
II
THE FRONT
VII. The Two Richebourgs
\u2022
VIII. Idols of the Cave
\u2022
IX. Stokes's Act
\u2022
X. The Front
\u2022
XI. At G.H.Q.
\u2022
XII. Mort pour la Patrie
\u2022
XIII. Meaux and some Brigands
\u2022
XIV. The Concierge at Senlis
\u2022
[Pg xii]III
UNOFFICIAL INTERLUDES
XV. A "Conseil de La Guerre"
\u2022
XVI. Peter
\u2022
XVII. Three Travellers
\u2022
XVIII. Barbara
\u2022
XIX. An Army Council
\u2022
XX. The Fugitives
\u2022
XXI. A "Dug-out"
\u2022
XXII. Christmas Eve, 1914
\u2022
IV
THE FRONT AGAIN
XXIII. The Coming of the Hun
\u2022
XXIV. The Hill
\u2022
XXV. The Day's Work
\u2022
XXVI. Fiat Justitia
\u2022
XXVII. Higher Education
\u2022
XXVIII. The Little Towns of Flanders and Artois
\u2022
XXIX. The "Front" once more
\u2022
XXX. Home again
\u2022
SOME RECENT BOOKS
[Pg 1]
I
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Leaves From A Field Note-book, by J.H. Morgan.
CONTENTS
3
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