.
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--sometimes
anonymously.

The reader will observe that many of these sketches appear in the form
of what, to borrow a French term, is called the _conte_. 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 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--using truth in the sense of veracity not value--and 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"--I can only hope that they will be half as real to the reader as
they were and are to me--the 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._

CONTENTS

I

THE BASE
PAGE
I. BOBS BAHADUR