Points of Honor: Short Stories of the Great War by a Us Combat Marine (War, Memory, and Culture) - Softcover

Boyd, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0817359117 ISBN 13: 9780817359119

Verlag: UNIV OF ALABAMA PR, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

A masterwork of World War I short stories portraying the experiences of Marines in battle.

Points of Honor: Short Stories of the Great War by a US Combat Marine is based on author Thomas Alexander Boyd's personal experiences as an enlisted Marine. First published in 1925 and long out of print, this edition rescues from obscurity a vivid, kaleidoscopic vision of American soldiers, US Marines mostly, serving in a global conflict a century ago. It is a true forgotten masterpiece of World War I literature.

The stories in Points of Honor deal almost entirely with Marines in the midst of battle-or faced with the consequences of military violence. The eleven stories in this collection offer a panoramic view of war experience and its aftermath, what Boyd described as "a mass of more human happenings." The themes are often antiheroic: dehumanization, pettiness, betrayal by loved ones at home, and the cruelty of military justice. But Boyd's vision also accommodates courage and loyalty. Like all great works of war literature, this collection underscores the central paradox of armed conflict-its ability to bring out both the best and worst in human beings.

This reissue of Points of Honor is edited, annotated, and introduced by Steven Trout. Trout provides an overview of Thomas Boyd's war experience and writing career and situates the stories within the broader context of World War I American literature.

Points of Honor received strong reviews at the time of its initial publication and remains an overwhelming reading experience today. While each of the stories is a freestanding work of art, when read together they carry the force of a novel.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Thomas Alexander Boyd (1898–1935) was a Marine veteran of World War I and the author of the novel Through the Wheat (1923), widely regarded as one of the finest depictions of combat in American literature. Boyd also wrote historical fiction and biographies of figures such as General “Mad” Anthony Wayne and “Light Horse” Harry Lee, the father of Robert E. Lee.
 
Steven Trout is the chair of the Department of English and codirector of the Center for the Study of War and Memory at the University of South Alabama. He is the author of On the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance, 1919–1941 and coeditor of World War I in American Fiction: An Anthology of Short Stories.

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Points of Honor

Short Stories of the Great War by a US Combat Marine

By Thomas Boyd, Steven Trout

The University of Alabama Press

Copyright © 2018 University of Alabama Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8173-5911-9

Contents

A Note on the Text and Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
Points of Honor, 
Foreword, 
I. Unadorned, 
II. The Kentucky Boy, 
III. Responsibility, 
IV. "Sound Adjutant's Call", 
V. Rintintin, 
VI. A Little Gall, 
VII. The Ribbon Counter, 
VIII. The Nine Days' Kitten, 
IX. The Long Shot, 
X. Uninvited, 
XI. Semper Fidelis, 
Explanatory Notes, 

CHAPTER 1

Unadorned

After they had returned from one of those practice manœuvres which had kept them standing in mud, viscous as court-plaster, for hours through the cold, black, soundless night; chilled and with that flat, dusty taste in their mouths which comes with early morning, it was not unusual for them to seek some one on whom to vent the ill feeling which their long, seemingly senseless vigil had awakened in them. In the course of which they would work in both directions from the middle. Beginning with the major, they would ascend the scale until they reached the commanding officer of the entire expeditionary force, or else they would tacitly absolve those only-heard-of deities and seek others closer to themselves.

The major, in some miraculous way, had captured their admiration, and it was only in the last extremity that anything was ever said against him. But the captain was protected by no such laudable sentiment, and, except for the men in the leading squads of the first platoon near whom the captain marched, the entire company grumblingly and mumblingly accused him of being everything from a shrewd, sharp German spy to a gibbering idiot. The words of criticism from the men would blend into a tuneless drone as they marched along the hard, gray side-road; and after a while the captain would grow tired of the noise and have the word passed back that there was to be no more talking on the march. This command, restraining only the more timorous, would leave the dissension to be carried on by the chronic grumblers. Oddly enough, the captain's command for silence would cause the men to seek a new object for their unkind remarks, finding it usually in the person of their platoon commander. If he had any regard for their health, if he wanted them to live long enough to get caught up to the front, which, after all, was what they came over to this damned country for, he would have got them out of this fool manœuvre. But he didn't care; he was just like the rest of these mail-order lieutenants; all he cared for was that Sam Browne belt, which he was so proud of that he wore it even when he went to bed at night, and that brass bar on his shoulder. Every blessed one of his men could die for all it mattered to him!

But the men of the fourth platoon would continue to grumble against the captain. For one reason, the fourth platoon was farthest away from the captain, and for another, they had nobody else to grumble about except the sergeants — and the sergeants were near enough to recognize the separate voices of the men.

The lieutenant in charge of the fourth platoon was Wilfred Bird, a well-formed, graceful young man with a soft brown mustache, contemplative, hazel eyes, and features more fine than manly, as that word is currently used. And the possession of such a likeness among a group of soldiers almost demanded that their owner have also a manner either of martinet or roué, so that by that sign the men would recognize him as practically one of themselves. But Wilfred Bird had no manner other than that with which he was born. And that was even more abundantly given him than one might think from his features. He was low-voiced and courteous; he treated each person as his equal, for that was the only way he knew how to treat him. He seriously and patiently listened to the complaints of the corporals and the privates; he was the solitary member of the younger officers who was fully at ease with his superiors — the colonel, say, or even the brigade commander.

From all of which it might be expected that he was held in contempt by the soldiers under him; he did not bluster, or force them to mean and unnecessary tasks to show his authority, and if he ever got drunk — as our sour-faced company commander got drunk — or visited brothels with the usual Saturday-night expedition, nobody ever knew about it. The strange part of it was, the bulk of his command respected him, and even the men in the other platoons, when they were discussing the comparative merits of the officers of the company, would say that So and So was this, and another lieutenant was that, but Wilfred Bird was a gentleman.

The word sounded unfamiliarly from their lips. It seemed, to a listener, as if the men ought not to have used that word. But one realized it to be the outcome of their regard for a man who was so unusual, so really fine.

And so, during those long wintry weeks in northern France when the men were training, hardening themselves for the front line, to which they were soon to go, Wilfred Bird marched doggedly along at the head of his platoon beside his right guide. The mud clung as disagreeably to his shoes as to the shoes of the enlisted men, the endless infuriating nights when the men stood motionless in some fake firing bay seemed as foolish and as unendurable to him as they did to the others, yet he remained silent, his closest approach to rebellion being a slightly worried expression in his hazel eyes. He had, however, no objection to make when his men began to curse, to say scandalous things against their officers for which the speakers could easily have been given courts-martial. This talk, this grumbling was, as Wilfred Bird had the sense to tell himself, a healthy reaction from the rigors of their training; it showed, unless it became excessive and hateful, that the men were lusty and in good spirits, that there would be gusto in their attack when they went to the front. Further, he enjoyed it for a more personal reason: keen, satiric phrases sprang out of uncouth mouths, delighting him with their unexpectedness, their original value. And then, talking occupied the men's minds, making them momentarily forgetful of the arduousness of the march.

It was only when the men began to wrangle among themselves that Wilfred Bird grew irritated. When one man would repeatedly step on the heels of the man in front of him, an uproar ensuing, the lieutenant would leave his place at the head of the division of the column and search for the trouble. When he found it he would say in a sort of a scolding fashion:

"Now you men be still; it's very dark — if the man behind you treads on your heels, O'Brien, ask your corporal to permit you to march in front of some one else."

"But, Je's, lieutenant," the usually belligerent O'Brien would begin. The lieutenant would hear him out, and offer a thoughtful suggestion.

When the battalion was back in its thin papier-mâché billets, supposedly resting, the men were required to be more careful in their appearance. They must shave daily, their heavy hobnailed shoes had to be kept free of mud, the buttons of their olive tunics must show through the proper buttonholes, their hair had to bear evidence of a recent combing, and their ordinary equipment, their bayonets, knives, forks, spoons, and aluminum mess-kits, must be kept clean and bright.

To insure themselves against the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: UNIV OF ALABAMA PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0817359117
• ISBN 13: 9780817359119
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 216
• Herausgeber: Trout Steven
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Niederlande