OLD SOLDIER SAHIB — Private Frank Richards—Smith & Haas* ($2.50).
In the last months of the Great War the ''doughboy," the "poilu" and the "Tommy'' fought side by side against "Jerry" (also known as "the Boche" and "the Hun"). Of all these warriors only "Tommy" had a last name. Thomas Atkins, oldest soldier of modern times, has been serving His or Her Britannic Majesty since post-Waterloo clays. Until the late great Rudyard Kipling showed what a dear fellow Tommy really was underneath his tough exterior, he was also known as "the brutal soldiery." Last week Thomas Atkins spoke up for himself, showed he was neither a dear fellow nor a brute, but a nice mixture of both. The wildest brawls and ruddiest language of Kipling's soldiers can be read unblushingly in a drawing-room. Private Richards' report, though peaceably expressed, is truer to bachelor life. Old Soldier Sahib has an honest animal smell, as exciting to plain citizens as a whiff from a lion's cage.
Robert Graves, onetime Captain in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, edited his fellow-soldier's book, wrote an appreciative introduction. Private Richards was already a veteran of 15 years' service when Graves, just out of public school, joined the battalion as an officer. With better luck than most veterans (Graves calls it a "20,000 to 1 chance"), Richards fought through the entire War without missing a battle or stopping a bullet. He won two decorations (Distinguished Conduct Medal, Military Medal), was known as "a good man," but never applied for a promotion and never got one. After the War he wrote his personal account of it (Old Soldiers Never Die, as yet unpublished in the U. S.) and sent it to Graves for his opinion. Graves then urged him to write the story of his pre-War soldiering in India and Burma. Result was Old Soldier Sahib.
Frank Richards first heard about army life at the bottom of a Welsh coal mine, when his "buttie," an ex-soldier, held forth on the milk & honey that was India. It sounded livelier than a collier's future, so off went young Richards to enlist in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. He was younger than the age he gave the recruiting sergeant, but well set-up and handy with his dukes. He soon got the hang of barrack life, and was enjoying his beer and his "bit of skirt" with the best. He took his part in many a pub-brawl, many a dangerous jest. When an ignorant young officer had him "crimed" for a dirty rifle (which was actually clean) and his attempts to establish his innocence only got him into hotter water, he learned another piece of old soldier's wisdom.