The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Last Shot, by Frederick Palmer

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Title: The Last Shot

Author: Frederick Palmer

Release Date: October 13, 2004 [eBook #13738]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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THE LAST SHOT

by

FREDERICK PALMER

Author of _Over the Pass_, etc.

1914

TO THE READER

This story of war grew out of my experience in many wars. I have been
under fire without fighting; known the comradeship of arms without
bearing arms, and the hardships and the humors of the march with only an
observer's incentive. A singular career, begun by chance, was pursued to
the ends of the earth in the study of the greatest drama which the earth
stages. Whether watching a small force of white regulars disciplining a
primitive people, or the complex tactics of huge army against huge army;
whether watching war in the large or in the small, I have found the same
basic human qualities in the white heat of conflict working out the same
illusions, heroisms, tragedies, and comedies.

The fellowship of campaigning made the cause of the force that I
accompanied mine for the time being. Thus, one who settles in the town
of A absorbs its local feeling of rivalry against the town of B in
athletic games or character of citizenship. To A, B is never quite
sportsmanlike; B is provincial and bigoted and generally inferior. But
settle in B and your prejudices reverse their favor from A to B.

Yet in the midst of battle, with the detachment of a non-combatant
marvelling at the irony of two lines of men engaged in an effort at
mutual extermination, I have caught myself thinking with the other side.
I knew why my side was busy at killing. Why was the other? For the same
reasons as ours.

I was seeing humanity against humanity. A man killed was a man killed,
courage was courage, sacrifice was sacrifice, romance was romance, a
heart-broken mother was a heart-broken mother, a village burned was a
village burned, regardless of race or nation. Every war became a story
in