Excerpt from The Last Crusade It was a year ago to-day that I was transferred by the Admiralty from a patrol on the East Coast to the Department of Naval Intelligence, with instructions to prepare to take up certain duties in Mesopotamia. At the time it seemed a goodly enough prospect, for the days would soon be getting short and drear. The rivers of Eden I felt would be more delectable in January than the rivers of Essex, and palm trees pleasanter to look upon in winter than the monotonous mud flats of Foulness. True, I should be in command of a paint box instead of a patrol boat; but ours "is not to reason why" - especially when we like the job - so I packed up and made vast pictorial preparations. Sketch books, chalks, paints and brushes filled a large official-looking black box, and my passage was arranged via Paris and Italy to Egypt. It happened, however, that things began to move so fast in Palestine that the attention of the whole world was turned to this zone of the great campaign. The Admiralty thought it wise to keep me under the Egypt command for a time, on my way out to the Persian Gulf, in order to make some records of naval work in progress along the shores of the Holy Land. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books.

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