LITMIR.BIZ

      I - A Letter

       Table of Contents

      HELIUM, June 8th, 1925

       MY DEAR MR. BURROUGHS:

       It was in the Fall of nineteen seventeen at an officers' training camp

       that I first became acquainted with John Carter, War Lord of Barsoom,

       through the pages of your novel "A Princess of Mars." The story made a

       profound impression upon me and while my better judgment assured me

       that it was but a highly imaginative piece of fiction, a suggestion of

       the verity of it pervaded my inner consciousness to such an extent that

       I found myself dreaming of Mars and John Carter, of Dejah Thoris, of

       Tars Tarkas and of Woola as if they had been entities of my own

       experience rather than the figments of your imagination.

       It is true that in those days of strenuous preparation there was little

       time for dreaming, yet there were brief moments before sleep claimed me

       at night and these were my dreams. Such dreams! Always of Mars, and

       during my waking hours at night my eyes always sought out the Red

       Planet when he was above the horizon and clung there seeking a solution

       of the seemingly unfathomable riddle he has presented to the Earthman

       for ages.

       Perhaps the thing became an obsession. I know it clung to me all during

       my training camp days, and at night, on the deck of the transport, I

       would lie on my back gazing up into the red eye of the god of battle--

       my god--and wishing that, like John Carter, I might be drawn across

       the great void to the haven of my desire.

       And then came the hideous days and nights in the trenches--the rats,

       the vermin, the mud--with an occasional glorious break in the monotony

       when we were ordered over the top. I loved it then and I loved the

       bursting shells, the mad, wild chaos of the thundering guns, but the

       rats and the vermin and the mud--God! how I hated them. It sounds like

       boasting, I know, and I am sorry; but I wanted to write you just the

       truth about myself. I think you will understand.

       And it may account for much that happened afterwards.

       There came at last to me what had come to so many others upon those

       bloody fields. It came within the week that I had received my first

       promotion and my captaincy, of which I was greatly proud, though humbly

       so; realizing as I did my youth, the great responsibility that it

       placed upon me as well as the opportunities it offered, not only in

       service to my country but, in a personal way, to the men of my command.

       We had advanced a matter of two kilometers and with a small detachment

       I was holding a very advanced position when I received orders to fall

       back to the new line. That is the last that I remember until I regained

       consciousness after dark. A shell must have burst among us. What became

       of my men I never knew. It was cold and very dark when I awoke and at

       first, for an instant, I was quite comfortable--before I was fully

       conscious, I imagine--and then I commenced to feel pain. It grew until

       it seemed unbearable. It was in my legs. I reached down to feel them,

       but my hand recoiled from what it found, and when I tried to move my

       legs I discovered that I was dead from the waist down. Then the moon

       came out from behind a cloud and I saw that I lay within a shell hole

       and that I was not alone--the dead were all about me.

       It was a long time before I found the moral courage and the physical

       strength to draw myself up upon one elbow that I might view the havoc

       that had been done me.

       One look was enough, I sank back in an agony of mental and physical

       anguish--my legs had been blown away from midway between the hips and

       knees. For some reason I was not bleeding excessively, yet I know that

       I had lost a great deal of blood and that I was gradually losing enough

       to put me out of my misery in a short time if I were not soon found;

       and as I lay there on my back, tortured with pain, I prayed that they

       would not come in time, for I shrank more from the thought of going

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