Lynn, Escott; Illustrated by W. H. C. Groome
With Six Coloured Illustrations By W. H. C. Groome
London; Philadelphia: W. & R. Chambers, Limited; J. B. Lippincott Company. 1911.
Nice cover pix in hand
NB Contains a foreword or intro by James Mustard
Lawrence Crider quotes from this foreword:
"We were coming back along the valley when a chum of the 13th Light Dragoons named Hettridge [1483, John Ettridge] rode up to me. "Jim", he said, "lend me your sword, for I've lost mine in the fight." I still had my lance, though the shaft had been chipped by a bullet. I turned to draw my sword to hand it to Hetridge [sic?], when, to my amazement, I had neither sword, scabbard, nor belt. A canister-shot had caught me on the left hip, and cut away sword, belt, overalls, and pants, and laid bare a great patch of bleeding flesh. Another inch would have smashed my hip and killed me."
Addendum: After lying all night on the ground, and helping to shift the camp twice, Sergeant Mustard was next day sent to Scutari, where he spent the next four months.
[Source: Escott Lynn, Blair of Balaclava, foreword x-xi, quoted in Crider, 3rd edition, p.494. ]
[PB:Is there any more by Mustard in the foreword?]
Look at http://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/prose-responses-to-world-war-one for references to Escott Lynn's action novels in the context of militarisation before WWI: "Writers like Escott Lynn in his adventure novels, and 'Sapper', in his various short stories, depicted war as a fulfilling and exciting endeavour."
PB: Might be interesting to take a quick look at the entire range of Escott Lynn's books.