Among the many strange events of the Great War, the case of Gerard Bretherton must, I think, be unique. I happened to know personally some of the men who were connected with those events; and although each man had only a limited, and therefore distorted, view of them, I was able to piece together the scraps of information I received and build up the whole story. I have decided, however, to sacrifice strict chronological order in favour of presenting these events where possible in the form and order in which I had them from the lips of eye-witnesses.
Part One therefore, which covers the Armistice and the few days preceding it, I have left as Captain Gurney wrote it. Part Two, which goes back to Christmas 1915, is taken from Captain Baron’s diary. And Part Three, which begins in the middle of 1916 and ends at the Armistice, thus overlapping Parts One and Two, is a composite account compiled from information supplied by Bretherton himself, the American Doctor Harding, Helen Gurney, Colonel Liddel, and Lieutenant von Arnberg, whom I discovered driving a taxi-cab in post-war Vienna.
In strict chronological order, then, Part One really comes last, with the end of Part Three; and Part Two comes first, overlapping the beginning of Part Three. But I hope that the parts will be read in the order in which I have placed them.
H. E.