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William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
This William Collins paperback edition published 2015
First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2014
Copyright © Gerry Harrison 2014
Foreword copyright © David Crane 2014
Gerry Harrison asserts the moral right to be identified as the editor of this work.
Maps © John Gilkes
Cover image © IWM
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007558551
Ebook Edition © July 2014 ISBN: 9780007558544
Version: 2015-10-13
Praise for To Fight Alongside Friends:
‘What shines through like sunshine is Charlie May’s default belief in service to country, his quiet commitment to others over self, and his sheer decency. You could bet your life on Charlie. And, in a way, we did’
The Times
‘[We] want to hear the voices of those who were there, unencumbered by 21st-century prejudices … To Fight Alongside Friends [is] the disarmingly jaunty, previously unpublished diary of Captain Charlie May … beautifully edited and minutely annotated’
Sunday Times
‘By 1 July 1916, when the last diary entry was entered at 5.45 a.m., the reader feels that they know Charlie May, and what follows comes as a shock, as if a cinema reel had broken in mid-reel’
Financial Times
‘Every so often one comes across a diary where it is the sense of personality behind it that lifts it out of the ordinary: such a diary is that of Captain Charlie May’
David Crane
Captain Charlie May, in the summer of 1915, before his departure for France.
Contents
Prologue: ‘A pippy, miserable blighter’
Chapter 1: ‘And all because it is war!’
Chapter 2: ‘Mud caked to his eyebrows’
Chapter 3: ‘Our past glorious Xmastides together’
Chapter 4: ‘It is the wire that is the trouble’
Chapter 5: ‘Full of brimming excitement about my leave’
Chapter 6: ‘What a game it is!’
Chapter 7: ‘Dry trenches mean happy men’
Chapter 8: ‘Pushes and rumours of pushes fill the air’
Chapter 9: ‘God bless the fool who made that shell’
Chapter 10: ‘The flickering, angry light of a burning village’
Chapter 11: ‘The greatest battle in the world is on the eve of breaking’
Chapter 12: ‘We are all agog with expectancy’
Epilogue: ‘My dear one could not have died more honourably or gloriously …’