The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tommy, by Joseph Hocking

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Title: Tommy

Author: Joseph Hocking

Release Date: April 4, 2008 [EBook #24986]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMMY ***

Produced by Al Haines

TOMMY

BY

JOSEPH HOCKING

AUTHOR OF

"ALL FOR A SCRAP OF PAPER"
"DEARER THAN LIFE" ETC.

HODDER AND STOUGHTON

LONDON ---- NEW YORK ---- TORONTO

MCMXVI

_TWO GREAT WAR STORIES BY JOSEPH HOCKING_

ALL FOR A SCRAP OF PAPER
DEARER THAN LIFE

_OTHER STORIES BY JOSEPH HOCKING_

Facing Fearful Odds
O'er Moor and Fen
The Wilderness
Rosaleen O'Hara
The Soul of Dominie Wildthorne
Follow the Gleam
David Baring
The Trampled Cross

NOTE

My only qualification for writing this simple story of "Tommy" is that
I have tried to know him, and that I greatly admire him. I met him
before he joined the army, when for more than six months I addressed
recruiting meetings. I have also been with him in training camps, and
spent many hours talking with him. It was during those hours that he
opened his heart to me and showed me the kind of man he is. Since then
I have visited him in France and Flanders. I have been with him down
near La Bassee, and Neuve Chapelle. I have talked with him while great
guns were booming as well as during his hours of well-earned rest, when
he was in a garrulous mood, and was glad to crack a joke "wi' a man
wearin' a black coat." I have also been with him up at Ypres, when the
shells were shrieking over our heads, and the "pep, pep, pep" of
machine guns heralded the messengers of death. We stood side by side
in the front trenches, less than a hundred yards from the German
sand-bags, when to lift one's head meant a Hun's bullet through one's
brain, and when "woolly bears" were common. So although I am not a
soldier, and have probably fallen into technical errors in telling the
story of "Tommy," it is not because he is a stranger to me, or because
I have not tried to know him.

Only a small part of this story is imagination. Nearly every incident
in the book was told me by "Tommy" himself,