Three Times and Out Told by Private Simmons, Written by Nellie L. McClung — A Closer Reading

A Collaborative Voice

The book's authorship is split: Simmons provides the experience, McClung the prose. In the preface, McClung describes Simmons's tale as 'straightforward, unadorned,' and she aims to preserve that quality. The result is a first-person narrative that occasionally shifts into a more literary register—for instance, when describing a 'thin crust of ice' on January streams or a 'chilly wind crackling the trees.' Yet the core remains Simmons's practical observations: the grunt as 'common to all languages,' the careful removal of socks before wading to keep feet dry, the reliance on spruce thickets for daytime hiding. These details ground the story in the physical realities of escape, not heroic rhetoric.

The Weight of a Comrade's Sacrifice

The excerpt from the escape attempt shows a clear division of roles: Simmons and Edwards press on while Bromley deliberately surrenders to buy them time. Simmons's account is restrained—'I often wondered what he told them'—but the emotional weight is carried by the dedication and by small gestures, such as the whispered agreement that 'if anything happened to one of us, the others were to go on.' The narrative does not dwell on Bromley's fate; instead, it records the practical aftermath: the depression that slowed the remaining pair, the decision to risk a dash toward a forest that turned out to be 'a group of slim evergreens.' The loyalty is shown through action, not sentiment.

Catalog Subjects vs. Actual Content

The catalog lists 'Prisoner-of-war escapes' as a subject, and the excerpt indeed centers on an escape. But the narrative also reveals a broader scope: the preface mentions McClung's own friends in prison camps and her questions about treatment, parcels, and loneliness—concerns that the book likely addresses beyond the escape itself. The table of contents includes chapters on 'The Lazaret' (a hospital) and 'The Prison-Camp,' suggesting that Simmons's time as a prisoner, not just his flight, is documented. Readers expecting a pure adventure story may find instead a detailed account of camp life, the 'Invisible Brotherhood' of helpers, and the mundane hardships of winter travel—'no vegetables in the gardens or apples on the trees.' The escape is one part of a larger testimony.

Readers should approach Three Times and Out as a collaborative document: Simmons's memory filtered through McClung's editing. The narrative's strength lies in its specific, unglamorous details—the grunt, the frozen feet, the misidentified trees. Pay attention to what is left unsaid about Bromley and to the quiet competence of the escapees. This is not a general's memoir but a private's report, and its value is in that perspective.

Reading about Private Simmons's stubborn hope inside those camps, I kept thinking how different the war looked from headquarters, and how much the mud and courage in Canada in Flanders, Volume I — Reading Notes felt like the same story from another window. Some books just sit beside each other that way, quietly nodding. I still miss that first, awed hour with each of them.