I have tried in the following pages to give a true and unexaggerated account of my travels and of all that happened to me from leaving England, under orders with the MEF, to landing at Marseilles, where we were taken over by the BEF.
The first chapter of my book was actually written during the voyage, the rest I have taken from my memory, aided by my diaries, which I kept almost religiously, often entering notes under heavy fire but always sticking strictly to facts.
It is impossible to set down in writing just what those months on the Peninsula meant to me and to all the other fellows there and I have been content to write down the chief items of interest.
I may as well state here that I enlisted in the Royal Marines on 22 September 1914 at Nottingham and was sent from there to Portsmouth.
The interval between joining and leaving England was spent, on the whole, pleasantly, training at Portsmouth, Fareham, a three-day route march in glorious weather through the New Forest to Lyndhurst and Ringwood, finishing up at our final training place at Okeford Fitzpaine, a lovely little place in Dorset.
Blandford, about six miles away, was the training centre for the Royal Naval Division.
Here we got fit for the big move.
Harry Askin