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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:43:40 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:43:40 -0700 |
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diff --git a/14086-h/14086-h.htm b/14086-h/14086-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f96dce --- /dev/null +++ b/14086-h/14086-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4320 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of TITLE, by AUTHOR. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14086 ***</div> + +<p class="figcenter"><a href="images/001.jpg"> +<img src="images/001.jpg" width="50%" alt="" title="" /></a> +</p> + + +<p class="figcenter"> + <a href="#CARRY_ON"><b>CARRY ON</b></a><br /> + <a href="#INTRODUCTION"><b>INTRODUCTION</b></a><br /> + <a href="#THE_LETTERS"><b>THE LETTERS</b></a><br /> + <br /> + <a href="#I"><b>I</b></a> + <a href="#II"><b>II</b></a> + <a href="#III"><b>III</b></a> + <a href="#IV"><b>IV</b></a> + <a href="#V"><b>V</b></a> + <a href="#VI"><b>VI</b></a> + <a href="#VII"><b>VII</b></a> + <a href="#VIII"><b>VIII</b></a> + <a href="#IX"><b>IX</b></a> + <a href="#X"><b>X</b></a><br /> + <a href="#XI"><b>XI</b></a> + <a href="#XII"><b>XII</b></a> + <a href="#XIII"><b>XIII</b></a> + <a href="#XIV"><b>XIV</b></a> + <a href="#XV"><b>XV</b></a> + <a href="#XVI"><b>XVI</b></a> + <a href="#XVII"><b>XVII</b></a> + <a href="#XVIII"><b>XVIII</b></a> + <a href="#XIX"><b>XIX</b></a> + <a href="#XX"><b>XX</b></a><br /> + <a href="#XXI"><b>XXI</b></a> + <a href="#XXII"><b>XXII</b></a> + <a href="#XXIII"><b>XXIII</b></a> + <a href="#XXIV"><b>XXIV</b></a> + <a href="#XXV"><b>XXV</b></a> + <a href="#XXVI"><b>XXVI</b></a> + <a href="#XXVII"><b>XXVII</b></a> + <a href="#XXVIII"><b>XXVIII</b></a> + <a href="#XXIX"><b>XXIX</b></a> + <a href="#XXX"><b>XXX</b></a><br /> + <a href="#XXXI"><b>XXXI</b></a> + <a href="#XXXII"><b>XXXII</b></a> + <a href="#XXXIII"><b>XXXIII</b></a> + <a href="#XXXIV"><b>XXXIV</b></a> + <a href="#XXXV"><b>XXXV</b></a> + <a href="#XXXVI"><b>XXXVI</b></a> + <a href="#XXXVII"><b>XXXVII</b></a> + <a href="#XXXVIII"><b>XXXVIII</b></a> + <a href="#XXXIX"><b>XXXIX</b></a> + <a href="#XL"><b>XL</b></a><br /> + <a href="#XLI"><b>XLI</b></a> + <a href="#XLII"><b>XLII</b></a> + <a href="#XLIII"><b>XLIII</b></a> + <a href="#XLIV"><b>XLIV</b></a> + <a href="#XLIV"><b>XLIV</b></a> + <a href="#XLV"><b>XLV</b></a> + <a href="#XLVI"><b>XLVI</b></a> + <a href="#XLVII"><b>XLVII</b></a> + <a href="#XLVIII"><b>XLVIII</b></a> + <a href="#XLIX"><b>XLIX</b></a><br /> +<br /><br /> +</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a href="images/003.jpg"> +<img src="images/003.jpg" width="50%" alt="Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson Canadian Field Artillery" title="" /></a> +<br /><b>Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson Canadian Field Artillery</b> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>CARRY ON</h1> + +<h2>LETTERS IN WAR TIME</h2> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>CONINGSBY DAWSON</h3> + +<h4>NOVELIST AND SOLDIER</h4> + +<h5>WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES</h5> + +<h4>BY HIS FATHER, W.J. DAWSON</h4> + +<h5>1917</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">WHEN THE WAR'S AT AN END</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">At length when the war's at an end</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">And we're just ourselves,—you and I,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And we gather our lives up to mend,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">We, who've learned how to live and to die:</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Shall we think of the old ambition</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">For riches, or how to grow wise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">When, like Lazarus freshly arisen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">We've the presence of Death in our eyes?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Shall we dream of our old life's passion,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">To toil for our heart's desire,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Whose souls War has taken to fashion</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">With molten death and with fire?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I think we shall crave the laughter</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Of the wind through trees gold with the sun,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">When our strife is all finished,—after</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">The carnage of War is done.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Just these things will then seem worth while:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">How to make Life more wondrously sweet;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">How to live with a song and a smile,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">How to lay our lives at Love's feet.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 19em;">ERIC P. DAWSON,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21.5em;"><i>Sub. Lieut</i>. R.N.V.R.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION" />INTRODUCTION</h2> + + +<p>The letters in this volume were not written +for publication. They are intimate and +personal in a high degree. They would not now +be published by those to whom they are addressed, +had they not come to feel that the spirit +and temper of the writer might do something to +strengthen and invigorate those who, like himself, +are called on to make great sacrifices for +high causes and solemn duties.</p> + +<p>They do not profess to give any new information +about the military operations of the Allies; +this is the task of the publicist, and at all times +is forbidden to the soldier in the field. Here and +there some striking or significant fact has been +allowed to pass the censor; but the value of the +letters does not lie in these things. It is found +rather in the record of how the dreadful yet +heroic realities of war affect an unusually sensitive +mind, long trained in moral and romantic +idealism; the process by which this mind adapts +itself to unanticipated and incredible conditions, +to acts and duties which lie close to horror, and +are only saved from being horrible by the efficacy +of the spiritual effort which they evoke. Hating +the brutalities of War, clearly perceiving the +wide range of its cruelties, yet the heart of the +writer is never hardened by its daily commerce +with death; it is purified by pity and terror, by +heroism and sacrifice, until the whole nature +seems fresh annealed into a finer strength.</p> + +<p>The intimate nature of these letters makes it +necessary to say something about the writer.</p> + +<p>Coningsby Dawson graduated with honours in +history from Oxford in 1905, and in the same +year came to the United States with the intention +of taking a theological course at Union Seminary. +After a year at the Seminary he reached +the conclusion that his true lifework lay in literature, +and he at once began to fit himself for his +vocation. In the meantime his family left England, +and we had made our home in Taunton, +Massachusetts. Here, in a quiet house, amid +lawns and leafy elms, he gave himself with indefatigable +ardour to the art of writing. He wrote +from seven to ten hours a day, producing many +poems, short stories, and three novels. Few +writers have ever worked harder to attain literary +excellence, or have practised a more austere +devotion to their art. I often marvelled how a +young man, fresh from a brilliant career at the +greatest of English Universities, could be content +with a life that was so widely separated from +association with men and affairs. I wondered +still more at the patience with which he endured +the rebuffs that always await the beginner in +literature, and the humility with which he was +willing to learn the hard lessons of his apprenticeship +in literary form. The secret lay, no +doubt, in his secure sense of a vocation, and his +belief that good work could not fail in the end +to justify itself. But, not the less, these four +years of obscure drudgery wore upon his spirit, +and hence some of the references in these letters +to his days of self-despising. The period of +waiting came to an end at last with the publication +in 1913 of his <i>Garden Without Walls</i>, +which attained immediate success. When he +speaks in these letters of his brief burst of fame, +he refers to those crowded months in the Fall of +1913, when his novel was being discussed on +every hand, and, for the first time, he met many +writers of established reputation as an equal.</p> + +<p>Another novel, <i>The Raft</i>, followed <i>The +Garden Without Walls</i>. The nature of his life +now seemed fixed. To the task of novel-writing +he had brought a temperament highly idealistic +and romantic, a fresh and vivid imagination, and +a thorough literary equipment. His life, as he +planned it, held but one purpose for him, outside +the warmth and tenacity of its affections—the +triumph of the efficient purpose in the adequate +expression of his mind in literature. The austerity +of his long years of preparation had left +him relatively indifferent to the common prizes +of life, though they had done nothing to lessen +his intense joy in life. His whole mind was concentrated +on his art. His adventures would be +the adventures of the mind in search of ampler +modes of expression. His crusades would be the +crusades of the spirit in search of the realities +of truth. He had received the public recognition +which gave him faith in himself and faith in his +ability to achieve the reputation of the true artist, +whose work is not cheapened but dignified and +broadened by success. So he read the future, +and so his critics read it for him. And then, +sudden and unheralded, there broke on this quiet +life of intellectual devotion the great storm of +1914. The guns that roared along the Marne +shattered all his purposes, and left him face to +face with a solemn spiritual exigency which admitted +no equivocation.</p> + +<p>At first, in common with multitudes more experienced +than himself, he did not fully comprehend +the true measure of the cataclysm which +had overwhelmed the world. There had been +wars before, and they had been fought out by +standing armies. It was incredible that any war +should last more than a few months. Again and +again the world had been assured that war would +break down with its own weight, that no war +could be financed beyond a certain brief period, +that the very nature of modern warfare, with its +terrible engines of destruction, made swift decisions +a necessity. The conception of a British +War which involved the entire manhood of the +nation was new, and unparalleled in past history. +And the further conception of a war so vast in +its issues that it really threatened the very existence +of the nation was new too. Alarmists had +sometimes predicted these things, but they had +been disbelieved. Historians had used such +phrases of long past struggles, but often as a +mode of rhetoric rather than as the expression +of exact truth. Yet, in a very few weeks, it +became evident that not alone England, but the +entire fabric of liberal civilisation was threatened +by a power that knew no honour, no restraints +of either caution or magnanimity, no +ethic but the armed might that trampled under +blood-stained feet all the things which the common +sanction of centuries held dearest and fairest.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, if Coningsby had been resident in +England, these realities of the situation would +have been immediately apparent. Residing in +America, the real outlines of the struggle were +a little dimmed by distance. Nevertheless, from +the very first he saw clearly where his duty lay. +He could not enlist immediately. He was bound +in honour to fulfil various literary obligations. +His latest book, <i>Slaves of Freedom</i>, was in +process of being adapted for serial use, and its +publication would follow. He set the completion +of this work as the period when he must enlist; +working on with difficult self-restraint toward +the appointed hour. If he had regrets for a +career broken at the very point where it had +reached success and was assured of more than +competence, he never expressed them. His one +regret was the effect of his enlistment on those +most closely bound to him by affections which +had been deepened and made more tender by the +sense of common exile. At last the hour came +when he was free to follow the imperative call +of patriotic duty. He went to Ottawa, saw Sir +Sam Hughes, and was offered a commission in +the Canadian Field Artillery on the completion +of his training at the Royal Military College, at +Kingston, Ontario. The last weeks of his training +were passed at the military camp of Petewawa +on the Ottawa River. There his family +was able to meet him in the July of 1916. While +we were with him he was selected, with twenty-four +other officers, for immediate service in +France; and at the same time his two younger +brothers enlisted in the Naval Patrol, then being +recruited in Canada by Commander Armstrong.</p> + +<p>The letters in this volume commence with his +departure from Ottawa. Week by week they +have come, with occasional interruptions; mud +stained epistles, written in pencil, in dug-outs by +the light of a single candle, in the brief moments +snatched from hard and perilous duties. They +give no hint of where he was on the far-flung +battle-line. We know now that he was at Albert, +at Thiepval, at Courcelette, and at the taking of +the Regina trench, where, unknown to him, one +of his cousins fell in the heroic charge of the +Canadian infantry. His constant thoughtfulness +for those who were left at home is manifest in +all he writes. It has been expressed also in other +ways, dear and precious to remember: in flowers +delivered by his order from the battlefield each +Sabbath morning at our house in Newark, in +cables of birthday congratulations, which arrived +on the exact date. Nothing has been forgotten +that could alleviate the loneliness of our separation, +or stimulate our courage, or make us conscious +of the unbroken bond of love.</p> + +<p>The general point of view in these letters is, I +think, adequately expressed in the phrase "<i>Carry +On</i>," which I have used as the title of this book. +It was our happy lot to meet Coningsby in London +in the January of the present year, when he +was granted ten days' leave. In the course of +conversation one night he laid emphasis on the +fact that he, and those who served with him, +were, after all, not professional soldiers, but +civilians at war. They did not love war, and +when the war was ended not five per cent of them +would remain in the army. They were men +who had left professions and vocations which +still engaged the best parts of their minds, and +would return to them when the hour came. War +was for them an occupation, not a vocation. Yet +they had proved themselves, one and all, splendid +soldiers, bearing the greatest hardships without +complaint, and facing wounds and death with +a gay courage which had made the Canadian +forces famous even among a host of men, equally +brave and heroic. The secret of their fortitude +lay in the one brief phrase, "Carry On." Their +fortitude was of the spirit rather than the nerves. +They were aware of the solemn ideals of justice, +liberty, and righteousness for which they fought, +and would never give up till they were won. In +the completeness of their surrender to a great +cause they had been lifted out of themselves to +a new plane of living by the transformation of +their spirit. It was the dogged indomitable drive +of spiritual forces controlling bodily forces. Living +or dying those forces would prevail. They +would carry on to the end, however long the war, +and would count no sacrifice too great to assure +its triumph.</p> + +<p>This is the spirit which breathes through these +letters. The splendour of war, as my son puts +it, is in nothing external; it is all in the souls of +the men. "There's a marvellous grandeur about +all this carnage and desolation—men's souls rise +above the distress—they have to, in order to survive." +"Every man I have met out here has the +amazing guts to wear his crown of thorns as +though it were a cap-and-bells." They have +shredded off their weaknesses, and attained that +"corporate stout-heartedness" which is "the acme +of what Aristotle meant by virtue." For himself, +he discovers that the plague of his former modes +of life lay in self-distrust. It was the disease of +the age. The doubt of many things which it were +wisdom to believe had ended in the doubt of one's +own capacity for heroism. All those doubts and +self-despisings had vanished in the supreme surrender +to sacrificial duty. The doors of the +Kingdom of Heroism were flung so wide that the +meanest might enter in, and in that act the +humblest became comrades of Drake's men, who +could jest as they died. No one knows his real +strength till it is put to the test; the highest joy +of life is to discover that the soul can meet the +test, and survive it.</p> + +<p>The Somme battlefield, from which all these +letters were despatched, is an Inferno much more +terrible than any Dante pictured. It is a vast +sea of mud, full of the unburied dead, pitted and +pock-marked by shell-holes, treeless and horseless, +"the abomination of desolation." And the +men who toil across it look more like outcasts +of the London Embankment than soldiers. +"They're loaded down like pack-animals, their +shoulders are rounded, they're wearied to death, +but they go on and go on.... There's no flash +of sword or splendour of uniforms. They're only +very tired men determined to carry on. The war +will be won by tired men who can never again +pass an insurance test." Yet they carry on—the +"broken counter-jumper, the ragged ex-plumber," +the clerk from the office, the man from the farm; +Londoner, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, +men drawn from every quarter of the Empire, +who daily justify their manhood by devotion to +an ideal and by contempt of death. And in the +heart of each there is a settled conviction +that the cause for which they have sacrificed so +much must triumph. They have no illusions +about an early peace. They see their comrades +fall, and say quietly, "He's gone West." They do +heroic things daily, which in a lesser war would +have won the Victoria Cross, but in this war are +commonplaces. They know themselves re-born +in soul, and are dimly aware that the world is +travailing toward new birth with them. They +are still very human, men who end their letters +with a row of crosses which stand for kisses. +They are not dehumanised by war; the kindliness +and tenderness of their natures are unspoiled by +all their daily traffic in horror. But they have +won their souls; and when the days of peace return +these men will take with them to the +civilian life a tonic strength and nobleness which +will arrest and extirpate the decadence of society +with the saving salt of valour and of faith.</p> + +<p>It may be said also that they do not hate their +foe, although they hate the things for which he +fights. They are fighting a clean fight, with men +whose courage they respect. A German prisoner +who comes into the British camp is sure of good +treatment. He is neither starved nor insulted. +His captors share with him cheerfully their rations +and their little luxuries. Sometimes a sullen +brute will spit in the face of his captor when +he offers him a cigarette; he is always an officer, +never a private. And occasionally between these +fighting hosts there are acts of magnanimity +which stand out illumined against the dark background +of death and suffering. One of the +stories told me by my son illustrates this. During +one fierce engagement a British officer saw a +German officer impaled on the barbed wire, +writhing in anguish. The fire was dreadful, yet +he still hung there unscathed. At length the +British officer could stand it no longer. He said +quietly, "I can't bear to look at that poor chap +any longer." So he went out under the hail of +shell, released him, took him on his shoulders and +carried him to the German trench. The firing +ceased. Both sides watched the act with wonder. +Then the Commander in the German trench came +forward, took from his own bosom the Iron +Cross, and pinned it on the breast of the British +officer. Such an episode is true to the holiest +ideals of chivalry; and it is all the more welcome +because the German record is stained by so many +acts of barbarism, which the world cannot forgive.</p> + +<p>This magnanimous attitude toward the enemy +is very apparent in these letters. The man +whose mind is filled with great ideals of sacrifice +and duty has no room for the narrowness of +hate. He can pity a foe whose sufferings exceed +his own, and the more so because he knows +that his foe is doomed. The British troops do +know this to-day by many infallible signs. In +the early days of the war untrained men, poorly +equipped with guns, were pitted against the best +trained troops in Europe. The first Canadian +armies were sacrificed, as was that immortal +army of Imperial troops who saved the day at +Mons. The Canadians often perished in that +early fighting by the excess of their own reckless +bravery. They are still the most daring +fighters in the British army, but they have +profited by the hard discipline of the past. They +know now that they have not only the will to +conquer, but the means of conquest. Their, artillery +has become conspicuous for its efficiency. +It is the ceaseless artillery fire which has turned +the issue of the war for the British forces. The +work of the infantry is beyond praise. They "go +over the top" with superb courage, and all who +have seen them are ready to say with my son, +"I'm hats off to the infantry." And in this final +efficiency, surpassing all that could have been +thought possible in the earlier stages of the war, +the British forces read the clear augury of victory. +The war will be won by the Allied armies; +not only because they fight for the better cause, +which counts for much, in spite of Napoleon's +cynical saying that "God is on the side of the +strongest battalions"; but because at last they +have superiority in equipment, discipline and efficiency. +Upon that shell-torn Western front, +amid the mud and carnage of the Somme, there +has been slowly forged the weapon which will +drive the Teuton enemy across the Rhine, and +give back to Europe and the world unhindered +liberty and enduring peace.</p> + +<p>W.J. DAWSON.</p> + +<p>March, 1917.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LETTERS" id="THE_LETTERS" />THE LETTERS</h2> + + +<p>In order to make some of the allusions in these +letters clear I will set down briefly the circumstances +which explain them, and supply a narrative +link where it may be required.</p> + +<p>I have already mentioned the Military Camp +at Petewawa, on the Ottawa river. The Camp +is situated about seven miles from Pembroke. +The Ottawa river is at this point a beautiful +lake. Immediately opposite the Camp is a little +summer hotel of the simplest description. It +was at this hotel that my wife, my daughter, and +myself stayed in the early days of July, 1916.</p> + +<p>The hotel was full of the wives of the officers +stationed in the Camp. During the daytime I +was the only man among the guests. About five +o'clock in the afternoon the officers from the +Camp began to arrive on a primitive motor ferryboat. +My son came over each day, and we often +visited him at the Camp. His long training at +Kingston had been very severe. It included besides +the various classes which he attended a great +deal of hard exercise, long rides or foot marches +over frozen roads before breakfast, and so forth. +After this strenuous winter the Camp at Petewawa +was a delightful change. His tent stood +on a bluff, commanding an exquisite view of the +broad stretch of water, diversified by many small +islands. We had a great deal of swimming in +the lake, and several motor-boat excursions to +its beautiful upper reaches. One afternoon +when we went over in our launch to meet him +at the Camp wharf, he told us that that day a +General had come from Ottawa to ask for +twenty-five picked officers to supply the casualties +among the Canadian Field Artillery at the +front. He had immediately volunteered and +been accepted.</p> + +<p>At this time my two younger sons, who had +joined us at Petewawa in order to see their +brother, enrolled themselves in the Royal Naval +Motor Patrol Service, and had to return to Nelson, +British Columbia, to settle their affairs. +Near Nelson, on the Kootenay Lake, we have a +large fruit ranch, managed by my second son, +Reginald. My youngest son, Eric, was with a +law-firm in Nelson, and had just passed his final +examinations as solicitor and barrister.</p> + +<p>This ranch had played a great part in our +lives. The scenery is among the finest in British +Columbia. We usually spent our summers +there, finding not only continual interest in the +development of our orchards, but a great deal of +pleasure in riding, swimming, and boating. We +had often talked of building a modern house +there, but had never done so. The original "little +shack" was the work of Reginald's own +hands, in the days when most of the ranch was +primeval forest. It had been added to, but was +still of the simplest description. One reason +why we had not built a modern house was that +this "little shack" had become much endeared to +us by association and memory. We were all together +there more than once, and Coningsby +had written a great deal there. We built later +on a sort of summer library—a big room on the +edge of a beautiful ravine—to which reference +is made in later letters. Some of the happiest +days of our lives were spent in these lovely surroundings, +and the memory of those blue summer +days, amid the fragrance of miles of pine-forest, +often recurs to Coningsby as he writes +from the mud-wastes of the Somme.</p> + +<p>We left Petewawa to go to the ranch before +Coningsby sailed for England, that we might +get our other two sons ready for their journey +to England. They left us on August 21st, and +the ranch was sub-let to Chinamen in the end +of September, when we returned to Newark, +New Jersey.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1><a name="CARRY_ON" id="CARRY_ON" />CARRY ON</h1> + +<h2><a name="I" id="I" />I</h2> + +<p>OTTAWA, July 16th, 1916.</p> + +<p>DEAREST ALL:</p> + + +<p>So much has happened since last I saw you +that it's difficult to know where to start. On +Thursday, after lunch, I got the news that we +were to entrain from Petewawa next Friday +morning. I at once put in for leave to go to +Ottawa the next day until the following Thursday +at reveille. We came here with a lot of the +other officers who are going over and have been +having a very full time.</p> + +<p>I am sailing from a port unknown on board +the <i>Olympic</i> with 6,000 troops—there is to be a +big convoy. I feel more than ever I did—and +I'm sure it's a feeling that you share since visiting +the camp—that I am setting out on a Crusade +from which it would have been impossible +to withhold myself with honour. I go quite +gladly and contentedly, and pray that in God's +good time we may all sit again in the little shack +at Kootenay and listen to the rustling of the orchard +outside. It will be of those summer days +that I shall be thinking all the time.</p> + +<p>Yours, with very much love,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II" />II</h2> + +<p>HALIFAX, July 23rd.</p> + +<p>MY DEAR ONES:</p> + +<p>We've spent all morning on the dock, seeing +to our baggage, and have just got leave +ashore for two hours. We have had letters +handed to us saying that on no account are we +to mention anything concerning our passage overseas, +neither are we allowed to cable our arrival +from the other side until four clear days have +elapsed.</p> + +<p>You are thinking of me this quiet Sunday +morning at the ranch, and I of you. And I am +wishing—As I wish, I stop and ask myself, +"Would I be there if I could have my +choice?" And I remember those lines of Emerson's +which you quoted:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Though love repine and reason chafe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There comes a voice without reply,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Twere man's perdition to be safe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">When for the Truth he ought to die."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>I wouldn't turn back if I could, but my heart +cries out against "the voice which speaks without +reply."</p> + +<p>Things are growing deeper with me in all sorts +of ways. Family affections stand out so desirably +and vivid, like meadows green after rain. +And religion means more. The love of a few +dear human people and the love of the divine +people out of sight, are all that one has to lean +on in the graver hours of life. I hope I come +back again—I very much hope I come back +again; there are so many finer things that I could +do with the rest of my days—bigger things. But +if by any chance I should cross the seas to stay, +you'll know that that also will be right and as big +as anything that I could do with life, and something +that you'll be able to be just as proud +about as if I had lived to fulfil all your other +dear hopes for me. I don't suppose I shall talk +of this again. But I wanted you to know that +underneath all the lightness and ambition there's +something that I learnt years ago in Highbury<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1" /><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>. +I've become a little child again in God's hands, +with full confidence in His love and wisdom, and +a growing trust that whatever He decides for me +will be best and kindest.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1" /><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> We resided over thirteen years at Highbury, London, +N., during my pastorate of the Highbury Quadrant Congregational +Church.</p></div> + +<p>This is the last letter I shall be able to send +to you before the other boys follow me. Keep +brave, dear ones, for all our sakes; don't let any +of us turn cowards whatever ultimately happens. +We've a tradition to live up to now that +we have become a family of soldiers and sailors.</p> + +<p>I shall long for the time when you come over +to England. Where will our meeting be and +when? Perhaps the war may be ended and then +won't you be glad that we dared all this sorrow +of good-byes?</p> + +<p>God bless and keep you,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III" />III</h2> + + +<p>ON BOARD, +July 27th, 1916.</p> + +<p>My VERY DEAR PEOPLE:</p> + +<p>Here we are scooting along across the +same old Atlantic we've crossed so many times +on journeys of pleasure. I'm at a loss to make +my letters interesting, as we are allowed to say +little concerning the voyage and everything is +censored.</p> + +<p>There are men on board who are going back +to the trenches for the second time. One of +them is a captain in the Princess Pat's, who is +badly scarred in his neck and cheek and thighs, +and has been in Canada recuperating. There is +also a young flying chap who has also seen service. +They are all such boys and so plucky in +the face of certain knowledge.</p> + +<p>This morning I woke up thinking of our motor-tour +of two years ago in England, and especially +of our first evening at The Three Cups +in Dorset. I feel like running down there to +see it all again if I get any leave on landing. +How strange it will be to go back to Highbury +again like this! The little boy who ran back +and forth to school down Paradise Row little +thought of the person who to-day masquerades +as his elder self.</p> + +<p>Heigho! I wish I could tell you a lot of +things that I'm not allowed to. This letter +would be much more interesting then.</p> + +<p>In seventeen days the boys will also have left +you—so this will arrive when you're horribly +lonely. I'm so sorry for you dear people—but +I'd be sorrier for you if we were all with you. +If I were a father or mother, I'd rather have +my sons dead than see them failing when the +supreme sacrifice was called for. I marvel all +the time at the prosaic and even coarse types of +men who have risen to the greatness of the occasion. +And there's not a man aboard who +would have chosen the job ahead of him. One +man here used to pay other people to kill his +pigs because he couldn't endure the cruelty of +doing it himself. And now he's going to kill +men. And he's a sample. I wonder if there is +a Lord God of Battles—or is he only an invention +of man and an excuse for man's own actions.</p> + +<p>Monday.</p> + +<p>We are just in—safely arrived in spite of +everything. I hope you had no scare reports of +our having been sunk—such reports often get +about when a big troop ship is on the way.</p> + +<p>I'm baggage master for my draft, and have to +get on deck now. You'll have a long letter from +me soon.</p> + +<p>Good-bye, +Yours ever, +Con.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV" />IV</h2> + + +<p>SHORNCLIFF, August 19th, 1916.</p> + +<p>MY DEARESTS:</p> + +<p>We haven't had any hint of what is going +to happen to us—whether Field Artillery, the +Heavies or trench mortars. There seems little +doubt that we are to be in England for a little +while taking special courses.</p> + +<p>I read father's letter yesterday. You are very +brave—you never thought that you would be the +father of a soldier and sailors; and, as you say, +there's a kind of tradition about the way in +which the fathers of soldiers and sailors should +act. Confess—aren't you more honestly happy +to be our father as we are now than as we were? +I know quite well you are, in spite of the loneliness +and heartache. We've all been forced into +a heroism of which we did not think ourselves +capable. We've been carried up to the Calvary +of the world where it is expedient that a few +men should suffer that all the generations to +come may be better.</p> + +<p>I understand in a dim way all that you suffer—the +sudden divorce of all that we had hoped +for from the present—the ceaseless questionings +as to what lies ahead. Your end of the business +is the worse. For me, I can go forward steadily +because of the greatness of the glory. I never +thought to have the chance to suffer in my body +for other men. The insufficiency of merely setting +nobilities down on paper is finished. How +unreal I seem to myself! Can it be true that I +am here and you are in the still aloofness of the +Rockies? I think the multitude of my changes +has blunted my perceptions. I trudge along like +a traveller between high hedgerows; my heart is +blinkered so that I am scarcely aware of landscapes. +My thoughts are always with you—I +make calculations for the differences of time that +I may follow more accurately your doings. I'd +love to come down to the study summer-house +and watch the blueness of the lake with you—I +love those scenes and memories more than any +in the world.</p> + +<p>Good-bye for the present. Be brave.</p> + +<p>Yours,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V" />V</h2> + + +<p>SHORNCLIFF, August 19th, 1916.</p> + +<p>MY DEARS:</p> + +<p>It's not quite three weeks to-day since I +came to England, and it seems ages. The first +week was spent on leave, the second I passed my +exams in gun drill and gun-laying, and this week +I have finished my riding. Next Monday I start +on my gunnery.</p> + +<p>Do you remember Captain S. at the Camp? +I had his young brother to dinner with me last +night-he's just back from France minus an +eye. He lasted three and a half weeks, and was +buried four feet deep by a shell. He's a jolly +boy, as cheerful as you could want and is very +good company. He gave me a vivid description. +He had a great boy-friend. At the start of the +war they both joined, S. in the Artillery, his +friend in the Mounted Rifles. At parting they +exchanged identification tokens. S.'s bore his +initials and the one word "Violets"—which +meant that they were his favourite flower and he +would like to have some scattered over him when +he was buried. His friend wore his initials and +the words "No flowers by request." It was S.'s +first week out—they were advancing, having +driven back the enemy, and were taking up a +covered position in a wood from which to renew +their offensive. It was night, black as pitch, but +they knew that the wood must have been the +scene of fighting by the scuttling of the rats. +Suddenly the moon came out, and from beneath +a bush S. saw a face—or rather half a face—which +he thought he recognised, gazing up at +him. He corrects himself when he tells the +story, and says that it wasn't so much the disfigured +features as the profile that struck him as +familiar. He bent down and searched beneath +the shirt, and drew out a little metal disc with +"No flowers by request" written on it.</p> + +<p>I don't know whether I ought to repeat things +like that to you, but the description was so +graphic. I have met many who have returned +from the Front, and what puzzles me in all of +them is their unawed acceptance of death. I +don't think I could ever accept it as natural; it's +too discourteous in its interruption of many +dreams and plans and loves.</p> + +<p>Yours with very much love,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI" />VI</h2> + +<p>SHORNCLIFF, August 30th, 1916.</p> + +<p>MY DEARESTS:</p> + +<p>I have just returned from sending you a +cable to let you know that I'm off to France. +The word came out in orders yesterday, and I +shall leave before the end of the week with a +draft of officers—I have been in England just a +day over four weeks. My only regret is that I +shall miss the boys who should be travelling up +to London about the same time as I am setting +out for the Front. After I have been there for +three months I am supposed to get a leave—this +should be due to me about the beginning of December, +and you can judge how I shall count on +it. Think of the meeting with R. and E., and +the immensity of the joy.</p> + +<p>Selfishly I wish that you were here at this +moment—actually I'm glad that you are away. +Everybody goes out quite unemotionally and +with very few good-byes—we made far more +fuss in the old days about a week-end visit.</p> + +<p>Now that at last it has come—this privileged +moment for which I have worked and waited—my +heart is very quiet. It's the test of a character +which I have often doubted. I shall be +glad not to have to doubt it again. Whatever +happens, I know you will be glad to remember +that at a great crisis I tried to play the man, however +small my qualifications. We have always +lived so near to one another's affections that this +going out alone is more lonely to me than to +most men. I have always had some one near at +hand with love-blinded eyes to see my faults as +springing from higher motives. Now I reach +out my hands across six thousand miles and only +touch yours with my imagination to say good-bye. +What queer sights these eyes, which have +been almost your eyes, will witness! If my hands +do anything respectable, remember that it is your +hands that are doing it. It is your influence as +a family that has made me ready for the part I +have to play, and where I go, you follow me.</p> + +<p>Poor little circle of three loving persons, +please be tremendously brave. Don't let anything +turn you into cowards—we've all got to +be worthy of each other's sacrifice; the greater +the sacrifice may prove to be for the one the +greater the nobility demanded of the remainder. +How idle the words sound, and yet they will take +deep meanings when time has given them graver +sanctions. I think gallant is the word I've been +trying to find—we must be gallant English +women and gentlemen.</p> + +<p>It's been raining all day and I got very wet +this morning. Don't you wish I had caught some +quite harmless sickness? When I didn't want to +go back to school, I used to wet my socks purposely +in order to catch cold, but the cold always +avoided me when I wanted it badly. How far +away the childish past seems—almost as though +it never happened. And was I really the budding +novelist in New York? Life has become +so stern and scarlet—and so brave. From my +window I look out on the English Channel, a +cold, grey-green sea, with rain driving across it +and a fleet of small craft taking shelter. Over +there beyond the curtain of mist lies France—and +everything that awaits me.</p> + +<p>News has just come that I have to start. Will +continue from France.</p> + +<p>Yours ever lovingly,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII" />VII</h2> + + +<p>Friday, September 1st, 1916, 11 am.</p> + +<p>DEAREST FATHER AND MOTHER:</p> + +<p>I embark at 12.30—so this is the last line +before I reach France. I expect the boys are +now within sight of English shores—I wish I +could have had an hour with them.</p> + +<p>I'm going to do my best to bring you honour—remember +that—I shall do things for your +sake out there, living up to the standards you +have taught me.</p> + +<p>Yours with a heart full of love,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII" />VIII</h2> + +<p>FRANCE, September 1st, 1916.</p> + +<p>DEAREST M.:</p> + +<p>Here I am in France with the same +strange smells and street cries, and almost the +same little boys bowling hoops over the very +cobbly cobble stones. I had afternoon tea at a +patisserie and ate a great many gâteaux for the +sake of old times. We had a very choppy crossing, +and you would most certainly have been +sick had you been on board. It seemed to me +that I must be coming on one of those romantic +holidays to see churches and dead history—only +the khaki-clad figures reminded me that I was +coming to see history in the making. It's a +funny world that batters us about so. It's three +years since I was in France—the last time was +with Arthur in Provence. It's five years since +you and I did our famous trip together.</p> + +<p>I wish you were here—there are heaps of English +nurses in the streets. I expect to sleep in +this place and proceed to my destination to-morrow. +How I wish I could send you a really descriptive +letter! If I did, I fear you would not +get it—so I have to write in generalities. None +of this seems real—it's a kind of wild pretence +from which I shall awake-and when I tell you +my dream you'll laugh and say, "How absurd +of you, dreaming that you were a soldier. I +must say you look like it."</p> + +<p>Good-bye, my dearest girl,</p> + +<p>God bless you,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX" />IX</h2> + + +<p>September 8th, 1916.</p> + +<p>MY DEAREST ONES:</p> + +<p>I'm sending this to meet you on your return +from Kootenay. I left England on September +1st and had a night at my point of disembarkation, +and then set off on a wandering adventure +in search of my division. I'm sure +you'll understand that I cannot enter into any +details—I can only give you general and purely +personal impressions. There were two other +officers with me, both from Montreal. We had +to picnic on chocolate and wine for twenty-four +hours through our lack of forethought in not supplying +ourselves with food for the trip. I shaved +the first morning with water from the exhaust +of a railroad engine, having first balanced my +mirror on the step. The engineer was fascinated +with my safety razor. There were Tommies +from the trenches in another train, muddied to +the eyes—who showed themselves much more resourceful. +They cooked themselves quite admirable +meals as they squatted on the rails, over +little fires on which they perched tomato cans. +Sunday evening we saw our first German prisoners—a +young and degenerate-looking lot. Sunday +evening we got off at a station in the rain, +and shouldered our own luggage. Our luggage, +by the way, consists of a sleeping bag, in which +much of our stuff is packed, and a kit sack—for +an immediate change and toilet articles one +carries a haversack hung across the shoulder. +Well, as I say, we alighted and coaxed a military +wagon to come to our rescue. As we set off +through a drizzling rain, trudging behind the +cart, a double rainbow shone, which I took for +an omen. Presently we came to a rest camp, +where we told our sad story of empty tummies, +and were put up for the night. A Jock—all +Highlanders are called Jock—looked after us. +Next morning we started out afresh in a motor +lorry and finished at a Y.M.C.A. tent, where +we stayed two nights. On Wednesday we met +the General in Command of our Division, who +posted me to the battery, which is said to be the +best in the best brigade in the best division—so +you may see I'm in luck. I found the battery +just having come out of action—we expect to go +back again in a day or two. Major B. is the +O.C.—a fine man. The lieutenant who shares +my tent won the Military Cross at Ypres last +Spring. I'm very happy—which will make you +happy—and longing for my first taste of real +war.</p> + +<p>How strangely far away I am from you—all +the experiences so unshared and different. Long +before this reaches you I shall have been in action +several times. This time three years ago +my streak of luck came to me and I was prancing +round New York. To-day I am much more +genuinely happy in mind, for I feel, as I never +felt when I was only writing, that I am doing +something difficult which has no element of self +in it. If I come back, life will be a much less +restless affair.</p> + +<p>This letter! I can imagine it being delivered +and the shout from whoever takes it and the +comments. I make the contrast in my mind—this +little lean-to spread of canvas about four +feet high, the horse-lines, guns, sentries going up +and down—and then the dear home and the well-loved +faces.</p> + +<p>Good-bye. Don't be at all nervous.</p> + +<p>Yours lovingly,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="X" id="X" />X</h2> + + +<p>September 12th, Tuesday.</p> + +<p>DEAREST M.:</p> + +<p>You will already have received my first +letters giving you my address over here. The +wagon has just come up to our position, but it has +brought me only one letter since I've been across. +I'm sitting in my dug-out with shells passing over +my head with the sound of ripping linen. I've +already had the novel experience of firing a battery, +and to-morrow I go up to the first line +trenches.</p> + +<p>It's extraordinary how commonplace war becomes +to a man who is thrust among others who +consider it commonplace. Not fifty yards away +from me a dead German lies rotting and uncovered—I +daresay he was buried once and then +blown out by a shell.</p> + +<p>Wednesday, 7 p.m.</p> + +<p>Your letters came two hours ago—the first to +reach me here—and I have done little else but +read and re-read them. How they bring the old +ways of life back with their love and longing! +Dear mother's tie will be worn to-morrow, and +it will be ripping to feel that it was made by her +hands. Your cross has not arrived yet, dear. +Your mittens will be jolly for the winter. I've +heard nothing from the boys yet.</p> + +<p>To-day I took a trip into No-Man's Land—when +the war is ended I'll be able to tell you all +about it. I think the picture is photographed +upon my memory forever. There's so much +you would like to hear and so little I'm allowed +to tell. Ask G.M.'C. if he was at Princeton with +a man named Price—an instructor there.</p> + +<p>You ought to see the excitement when the +water-cart brings us our mail and the letters are +handed out. Some of the gunners have evidently +told their Canadian girls that they are officers, +and so they are addressed on their letters as +lieutenants. I have to censor some of their replies, +and I can tell you they are as often funny +as pathetic. The ones to their mothers are childish, +too, and have rows of kisses. I think men +are always kiddies if you look beneath the surface. +The snapshots did fill me with a wanting +to be with you in Kootenay. But that's not +where you'll receive this. There'll probably be +a fire in the sitting-room at home, and a strong +aroma of coffee and tobacco. You'll be sitting +in a low chair before the fire and your fingers +rubbing the hair above your left ear as you read +this aloud. I'd like to walk in on you and say, +"No more need for letters now." Some day +soon, I pray and expect.</p> + +<p>Tell dear Papa and Mother that their answers +come next. What a lot of love you each one +manage to put into your written pages! I'm +afraid if I let myself go that way I might make +you unhappy.</p> + +<p>Since writing this far I have had supper. I'm +now sleeping in a new dug-out and get a shower +of mould on my sleeping-kit each time the guns +are fired. One doesn't mind that particularly, +especially when you know that the earth walls +make you safe. I have a candle in an old petrol +tin and dodge the shadows as I write. You +know, this artillery game is good sport and +one takes everything as it comes with a joke. +The men are splendid—their cheeriness comes +up bubbling whenever the occasion calls for the +dumps. Certainly there are fine qualities which +war, despite its unnaturalness, develops. I'm +hats off to every infantry private I meet nowadays.</p> + +<p>God bless you and all of you.</p> + +<p>Yours lovingly, Con.</p> + +<p>The reference in the previous letter to a +cross is to a little bronze cross of Francis of +Assisi.</p> + +<p>Many years ago I visited Assisi, and, on leaving, +the monks gave me four of these small +bronze crosses, assuring me that those who wore +them were securely defended in all peril by the +efficacious prayers of St. Francis. +Just before Coningsby left Shorncliff to go to +France he wrote to us and asked if we couldn't +send him something to hang round his neck for +luck. We fortunately had one of these crosses +of St. Francis at the ranch, and his sister—the +M. of these letters-sent it to him. It arrived +safely, and he has worn it ever since.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI" />XI</h2> + +<p>September 15th, 1916.</p> + +<p>DEAR FATHER:</p> + +<p>Your last letter to me was written on a +quiet morning in August—in the summer house +at Kootenay. It came up yesterday evening on a +water-cart from the wagon-lines to a scene a +little in contrast.</p> + +<p>It's a fortnight to-day since I left England, +and already I've seen action. Things move +quickly in this game, and it is a game—one +which brings out both the best and the worst +qualities in a man. If unconscious heroism is +the virtue most to be desired, and heroism spiced +with a strong sense of humour at that, then +pretty well every man I have met out here has +the amazing guts to wear his crown of thorns as +though it were a cap-and-bells. To do that for +the sake of corporate stout-heartedness is, I think, +the acme of what Aristotle meant by virtue. A +strong man, or a good man or a brainless man, +can walk to meet pain with a smile on his mouth +because he knows that he is strong enough to +bear it, or worthy enough to defy it, or because +he is such a fool that he has no imagination. +But these chaps are neither particularly strong, +good, nor brainless; they're more like children, +utterly casual with regard to trouble, and quite +aware that it is useless to struggle against their +elders. So they have the merriest of times while +they can, and when the governess, Death, summons +them to bed, they obey her with unsurprised +quietness. It sends the mercury of one's +optimism rising to see the way they do it. I +search my mind to find the bigness of motive +which supports them, but it forever evades me. +These lads are not the kind who philosophise +about life; they're the sort, many of them, who +would ordinarily wear corduroys and smoke a +cutty pipe. I suppose the Christian martyrs +would have done the same had corduroys been +the fashion in that day, and if a Roman Raleigh +had discovered tobacco.</p> + +<p>I wrote this about midnight and didn't get any +further, as I was up till six carrying on and firing +the battery. After adding another page or +two I want to get some sleep, as I shall probably +have to go up to the observation station to watch +the effect of fire to-night. But before I turn in +I want to tell you that I had the most gorgeous +mail from everybody. Now that I'm in touch +with you all again, it's almost like saying "How-do?" +every night and morning.</p> + +<p>I daresay you'll wonder how it feels to be under +shell-fire. This is how it feels—you don't +realise your danger until you come to think about +it afterwards—at the time it's like playing coconut +shies at a coon's head—only you're the coon's +head. You take too much interest in the sport +of dodging to be afraid. You'll hear the Tommies +saying if one bursts nearly on them, "Line, +you blighter, line. Five minutes more left," just +as though they were reprimanding the unseen +Hun battery for rotten shooting.</p> + +<p>The great word of the Tommies here is "No +bloody bon"—a strange mixture of French and +English, which means that a thing is no good. +If it pleases them it's <i>Jake</i>—though where Jake +comes from nobody knows.</p> + +<p>Now I must get a wink or two, as I don't +know when I may have to start off.</p> + +<p>Ever yours, with love,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII" />XII</h2> + +<p>September 19th, 1916.</p> + +<p>Dearest Mother:</p> + +<p>I've been in France 19 days, and it hasn't +taken me long to go into action. Soon I shall +be quite an old hand. I'm just back from 24 +hours in the Observation Post, from which one +watches the effect of fire. I understand now and +forgive the one phrase which the French children +have picked up from our Tommies on account +of its frequent occurrence—"bl—— mud." +I never knew that mud could be so thick and +treacly. All my fear that I might be afraid under +shell-fire is over—you get to believe that if +you're going to be hit you're going to be. But +David's phrase keeps repeating itself in my mind, +"Ten thousand shall fall at thy side, etc., but it +shall not come nigh unto thee." It's a curious +thing that the men who are most afraid are those +who get most easily struck. A friend of G.M.C.'s +was hit the other day within thirty yards of me—he +was a Princeton chap. I mentioned him in +one of my previous letters. Our right section +commander got a blighty two days ago and is +probably now in England. He went off on a +firing battery wagon, grinning all over his face, +saying he wouldn't sell that bit of blood and +shrapnel for a thousand pounds. I'm wearing +your tie—it's the envy of the battery. All the +officers wanted me to give them the name of my +girl. It never occurs to men that mothers will +do things like that.</p> + +<p>Thank the powers it has stopped raining and +we'll be able to get dry. I came in plastered +from head to foot with lying in the rain on my +tummy and peering over the top of a trench. +Isn't it a funny change from comfortable breakfasts, +press notices and a blazing fire?</p> + +<p>Do you want any German souvenirs? Just at +present I can get plenty. I have a splendid +bayonet and a belt with Kaiser Bill's arms on +it—but you can't forward these things from +France. The Germans swear that they're not +using bayonets with saw-edges, but you can buy +them for five francs from the Tommies—ones +they've taken from the prisoners or else picked +up.</p> + +<p>You needn't be nervous about me. I'm a +great little dodger of whizz-bangs. Besides I +have a superstition that there's something in the +power of M.'s cross to bless. It came with the +mittens, and is at present round my neck.</p> + +<p>You know what it sounds like when they're +shooting coals down an iron run-way into a +cellar-well, imagine a thousand of them. +That's what I'm hearing while I write.</p> + +<p>God bless you; I'm very happy.</p> + +<p>Yours ever,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII" />XIII</h2> + +<p>September 19th, 1916.</p> + +<p>Dearest Father:</p> + +<p>I'm writing you your birthday letter early, +as I don't know how busy I may be in the next +week, nor how long this may take to reach you. +You know how much love I send you and how +I would like to be with you. D'you remember +the birthday three years ago when we set the +victrola going outside your room door? Those +were my high-jinks days when very many things +seemed possible. I'd rather be the person I am +now than the person I was then. Life was +selfish though glorious.</p> + +<p>Well, I've seen my first modern battlefield and +am quite disillusioned about the splendour of +war. The splendour is all in the souls of the +men who creep through the squalor like vermin—it's +in nothing external. There was a chap +here the other day who deserved the V.C. four +times over by running back through the Hun +shell fire to bring news that the infantry wanted +more artillery support. I was observing for my +brigade in the forward station at the time. How +he managed to live through the ordeal nobody +knows. But men laugh while they do these +things. It's fine.</p> + +<p>A modern battlefield is the abomination of +abominations. Imagine a vast stretch of dead +country, pitted with shell-holes as though it had +been mutilated with small-pox. There's not a +leaf or a blade of grass in sight. Every house +has either been leveled or is in ruins. No bird +sings. Nothing stirs. The only live sound is +at night—the scurry of rats. You enter a kind +of ditch, called a trench; it leads on to another +and another in an unjoyful maze. From the +sides feet stick out, and arms and faces—the +dead of previous encounters. "One of our +chaps," you say casually, recognising him by his +boots or khaki, or "Poor blighter—a Hun!" +One can afford to forget enmity in the presence +of the dead. It is horribly difficult sometimes +to distinguish between the living and the slaughtered—they +both lie so silently in their little kennels +in the earthen bank. You push on—especially +if you are doing observation work, till you +are past your own front line and out in No +Man's Land. You have to crouch and move +warily now. Zing! A bullet from a German +sniper. You laugh and whisper, "A near one, +that." My first trip to the trenches was up to +No Man's Land. I went in the early dawn and +came to a Madame Tussaud's show of the dead, +frozen into immobility in the most extraordinary +attitudes. Some of them were part way +out of the ground, one hand pressed to the +wound, the other pointing, the head sunken and +the hair plastered over the forehead by repeated +rains. I kept on wondering what my companions +would look like had they been three weeks +dead. My imagination became ingeniously and +vividly morbid. When I had to step over them +to pass, it seemed as though they must clutch at +my trench coat and ask me to help. Poor lonely +people, so brave and so anonymous in their +death! Somewhere there is a woman who loved +each one of them and would give her life for my +opportunity to touch the poor clay that had been +kind to her. It's like walking through the day +of resurrection to visit No Man's Land. Then +the Huns see you and the shrapnel begins to +fall—you crouch like a dog and run for it.</p> + +<p>One gets used to shell-fire up to a point, but +there's not a man who doesn't want to duck when +he hears one coming. The worst of all is the +whizz-bang, because it doesn't give you a +chance—it pounces and is on you the same moment +that it bangs. There's so much I wish that +I could tell you. I can only say this, at the moment +we're making history.</p> + +<p>What a curious birthday letter! I think of all +your other birthdays—the ones before I met +these silent men with the green and yellow faces, +and the blackened lips which will never speak +again. What happy times we have had as a +family—what happy jaunts when you took me +in those early days, dressed in a sailor suit, when +you went hunting pictures. Yet, for all the +damnability of what I now witness, I was never +quieter in my heart. To have surrendered to an +imperative self-denial brings a peace which self-seeking +never brought.</p> + +<p>So don't let this birthday be less gay for my +absence. It ought to be the proudest in your +life—proud because your example has taught +each of your sons to do the difficult things which +seem right. It would have been a condemnation +of you if any one of us had been a shirker.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"I want to buy fine things for you</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And be a soldier if I can."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The lines come back to me now. You read +them to me first in the dark little study from a +green oblong book. You little thought that I +would be a soldier—even now I can hardly realise +the fact. It seems a dream from which I +shall wake up. Am I really killing men day by +day? Am I really in jeopardy myself?</p> + +<p>Whatever happens I'm not afraid, and I'll give +you reason to be glad of me.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Very much love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">CON.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The poem referred to in this letter was actually +written for Coningsby when he was between +five and six years old. The dark little study +which he describes was in the old house at Wesley's +Chapel, in the City Road, London—and it +was very dark, with only one window, looking +out upon a dingy yard. The green oblong book +in which I used to write my poems I still have; +and it is an illustration of the tenacity of a child's +memory that he should recall it. The poem was +called <i>A Little Boy's Programme</i>, and ran thus:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I am so very young and small,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">That, when big people pass me by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I sometimes think they are so high</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I'll never be a man at all.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And yet I want to be a man</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Because so much I want to do;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I want to buy fine things for you,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And be a soldier, if I can.</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">When I'm a man I will not let</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Poor little children starve, or be</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ill-used, or stand and beg of me</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With naked feet out in the wet.</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Now, don't you laugh!—The father kissed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The little serious mouth and said</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"You've almost made me cry instead,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">You blessed little optimist."</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV" />XIV</h2> + + +<p>September 21st, 1916.</p> + +<p>My Very Dear M.:</p> + +<p>I am wearing your talisman while I write +and have a strong superstition in its efficacy. +The efficacy of your socks is also very noticeable—I +wore them the first time on a trip to the +Forward Observation Station. I had to lie on +my tummy in the mud, my nose just showing +above the parapet, for the best part of twenty-four +hours. Your socks little thought I would +take them into such horrid places when you made +them.</p> + +<p>Last night both the King and Sir Sam sent us +congratulations—I popped in just at the right +time. I daresay you know far more about our +doings than I do. Only this morning I picked +up the <i>London Times</i> and read a full account of +everything I have witnessed. The account is +likely to be still fuller in the New York papers.</p> + +<p>"Home for Christmas"—that's what the Tommies +are promising their mothers and sweethearts +in all their letters that I censor. Yesterday +I was offered an Imperial commission in +the army of occupation. But home for Christmas, +will be Christmas, 1917—I can't think that +it will be earlier.</p> + +<p>Very much love,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV" />XV</h2> + +<p>Sunday, September 24th, 1916.</p> + +<p>DEAREST MOTHER:</p> + +<p>Your locket has just reached me, and I +have strung it round my neck with M.'s cross. +Was it M.'s cross the other night that accounted +for my luck? I was in a gun-pit when a shell +landed, killing a man only a foot away from me +and wounding three others—I and the sergeant +were the only two to get out all right. Men +who have been out here some time have a dozen +stories of similar near squeaks. And talking of +squeaks, it was a mouse that saved one man. It +kept him awake to such an extent that he determined +to move to another place. Just as he got +outside the dug-out a shell fell on the roof.</p> + +<p>You'll be pleased to know that we have a ripping +chaplain or Padre, as they call chaplains, +with us. He plays the game, and I've struck up +a great friendship with him. We discuss literature +and religion when we're feeling a bit fed +up. We talk at home of our faith being tested—one +begins to ask strange questions here when +he sees what men are allowed by the Almighty +to do to one another, and so it's a fine thing to +be in constant touch with a great-hearted chap +who can risk his life daily to speak of the life +hereafter to dying Tommies.</p> + +<p>I wish I could tell you of my doings, but it's +strictly against orders. You may read in the +papers of actions in which I've taken part and +never know that I was there.</p> + +<p>We live for the most part on tinned stuff, but +our appetites make anything taste palatable. +Living and sleeping in the open air keeps one +ravenous. And one learns to sleep the sleep of +the just despite the roaring of the guns.</p> + +<p>God bless you each one and give us peaceful* +hearts.</p> + +<p>Yours ever,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI" />XVI</h2> + +<p>September 28th, 1916.</p> + +<p>My Dears:</p> + +<p>We're in the midst of a fine old show, so +I don't get much opportunity for writing. Suffice +it to say that I've seen the big side of war by +now and the extraordinary uncalculating courage +of it. Men run out of a trench to an attack +with as much eagerness as they would display +in overtaking a late bus. If you want to +get an idea of what meals are like when a row +is on, order the McAlpin to spread you a table +where 34th crosses Broadway—and wait for the +uptown traffic on the Elevated. It's wonderful +to see the waiters dodging with dishes through +the shell-holes.</p> + +<p>It's a wonderful autumn day, golden and mellow; +I picture to myself what this country must +have looked like before the desolation of war +struck it.</p> + +<p>I was Brigade observation officer on September +26th, and wouldn't have missed what I saw +for a thousand dollars. It was a touch and go +business, with shells falling everywhere and machine-gun +fire—but something glorious to remember. +I had the great joy of being useful in +setting a Hun position on fire. I think the war +will be over in a twelvemonth.</p> + +<p>Our great joy is composing menus of the +meals we'll eat when we get home. Good-bye +for the present.</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII" />XVII</h2> + +<p>October 1st, 1916.</p> + +<p>MY DEAREST M.:</p> + +<p>Sunday morning, your first back in Newark. +You're not up yet owing to the difference +in time—I can imagine the quiet house with +the first of the morning stealing greyly in. +You'll be presently going to church to sit in your +old-fashioned mahogany pew. There's not +much of Sunday in our atmosphere—only the +little one can manage to keep in his heart. I +shall share the echo of yours by remembering.</p> + +<p>I'm waiting orders at the present moment to +go forward with the Colonel and pick out a new +gun position. You know I'm very happy-satisfied +for the first time I'm doing something big +enough to make me forget all failures and self-contempts. +I know at last that I can measure +up to the standard I have always coveted for myself. +So don't worry yourselves about any note +of hardship that you may interpret into my letters, +for the deprivation is fully compensated for +by the winged sense of exaltation one has.</p> + +<p>Things have been a little warm round us +lately. A gun to our right, another to our rear +and another to our front were knocked out with +direct hits. We've got some of the chaps taking +their meals with us now because their mess +was all shot to blazes. There was an officer who +was with me at the 53rd blown thirty feet into +the air while I was watching. He picked himself +up and insisted on carrying on, although his +face was a mass of bruises. I walked in on the +biggest engagement of the entire war the moment +I came out here. There was no gradual +breaking-in for me. My first trip to the front +line was into a trench full of dead.</p> + +<p>Have you seen Lloyd George's great speech? +I'm all with him. No matter what the cost and +how many of us have to give our lives, this War +must be so finished that war may be forever at +an end. If the devils who plan wars could only +see the abysmal result of their handiwork! +Give them one day in the trenches under shell-fire +when their lives aren't worth a five minutes' +purchase—or one day carrying back the wounded +through this tortured country, or one day in a +Red Cross train. No one can imagine the damnable +waste and Christlessness of this battering +of human flesh. The only way that this War can +be made holy is by making it so thorough that +war will be finished for all time.</p> + +<p>Papa at least will be awake by now. How +familiar the old house seems to me—I can think +of the place of every picture. Do you set the +victrola going now-a-days? I bet you play +Boys in Khaki, Boys in Blue.</p> + +<p>Please send me anything in the way of eatables +that the goodness of your hearts can imagine—also +smokes.</p> + +<p>Later.</p> + +<p>I came back from the front-line all right and +have since been hard at it firing. Your letters +reached me in the midst of a bombardment—I +read them in a kind of London fog of gun-powder +smoke, with my steel helmet tilted back, +in the interval of commanding my section +through a megaphone.</p> + +<p>Don't suppose that I'm in any way unhappy—I'm +as cheerful as a cricket and do twice as +much hopping—I have to. There's something +extraordinarily bracing about taking risks and +getting away with it—especially when you know +that you're contributing your share to a far-reaching +result. My mother is the mother of a +soldier now, and soldiers' mothers don't lie +awake at night imagining—they just say a prayer +for their sons and leave everything in God's +hands. I'm sure you'd far rather I died than +not play the man to the fullest of my strength. +It isn't when you die that matters—it's how. +Not but what I intend to return to Newark and +make the house reek of tobacco smoke before +I've done.</p> + +<p>We're continually in action now, and the casualty +to B. has left us short-handed—moreover +we're helping out another battery which has lost +two officers. As you've seen by the papers, +we've at last got the Hun on the run. Three +hundred passed me the other day unescorted, +coming in to give themselves up as prisoners. +They're the dirtiest lot you ever set eyes on, and +looked as though they hadn't eaten for months. +I wish I could send you some souvenirs. But +we can't send them out of France.</p> + +<p>I'm scribbling by candlelight and everything's +jumping with the stamping of the guns. I wear +the locket and cross all the time.</p> + +<p>Yours with much love,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII" />XVIII</h2> + +<p>October 13th, 1916.</p> + +<p>DEAR ONES:</p> + +<p>I have only time to write and assure you +that I am safe. We're living in trenches at +present—I have my sleeping bag placed on a +stretcher to keep it fairly dry. By the time you +get this we expect to be having a rest, as we've +been hard at it now for an unusually long time. +How I wish that I could tell you so many things +that are big and vivid in my mind-but the censor—!</p> + +<p>Yesterday I had an exciting day. I was up +forward when word came through that an officer +still further forward was wounded and he'd +been caught in a heavy enemy fire. I had only +a kid telephonist with me, but we found a +stretcher, went forward and got him out. The +earth was hopping up and down like pop-corn +in a frying pan. The unfortunate thing was +that the poor chap died on the way out. It was +only the evening before that we had dined together +and he had told me what he was going to +do with his next leave.</p> + +<p>God bless you all,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX" />XIX</h2> + +<p>October 14th, 1916.</p> + +<p>DEAREST MOTHER:</p> + +<p>I'm still all right and well. To-day I had +the funniest experience of my life—got caught +in a Hun curtain of fire and had to lie on my +tummy for two hours in a trench with the shells +bursting five yards from me—and never a +scratch. You know how I used to wonder what +I'd do under such circumstances. Well, I +laughed. All I could think of was the sleek people +walking down Fifth Avenue, and the equally +sleek crowds taking tea at the Waldorf. It +struck me as ludicrous that I, who had been one +of them, should be lying there lunchless. For +a little while I was slightly deaf with the concussions.</p> + +<p>That poem keeps on going through my head,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Oh, to come home once more, when the dusk is falling,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">To see the nursery lighted and the children's table spread;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Mother, mother, mother!" the eager voices calling,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">"The baby was so sleepy that he had to go to bed!"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Wouldn't it be good, instead of sitting in a +Hun dug-out?</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Yours lovingly,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">CON.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XX" id="XX" />XX</h2> + +<p>October 15th, 1916.</p> + +<p>Dear Ones:</p> + +<p>We're still in action, but are in hopes that +soon we may be moved to winter quarters. +We've had our taste of mud, and are anxious to +move into better quarters before we get our next. +I think I told you that our O.C. had got +wounded in the feet, and our right section commander +got it in the shoulder a little earlier—so +we're a bit short-handed and find ourselves with +plenty of work.</p> + +<p>I have curiously lucid moments when recent +happenings focus themselves in what seems to be +their true perspective. The other night I was +Forward Observation officer on one of our recent +battlefields. I had to watch the front all +night for signals, etc. There was a full white +moon sailing serenely overhead, and when I +looked at it I could almost fancy myself back in +the old melancholy pomp of autumn woodlands +where the leaves were red, not with the colour +of men's blood. My mind went back to so many +by-gone days-especially to three years ago. I +seemed so vastly young then, upon reflection. +For a little while I was full of regrets for many +things wasted, and then I looked at the battlefield +with its scattered kits and broken rifles. +Nothing seemed to matter very much. A rat +came out-then other rats. I stood there feeling +extraordinarily aloof from all things that +can hurt, and—you'll smile—I planned a novel. +O, if I get back, how differently I shall write! +When you've faced the worst in so many forms, +you lose your fear and arrive at peace. There's +a marvellous grandeur about all this carnage and +desolation—men's souls rise above the distress—they +have to in order to survive. When you see +how cheap men's bodies are you cannot help but +know that the body is the least part of personality.</p> + +<p>You can let up on your nervousness when +you get this, for I shall almost certainly be in a +safer zone. We've done more than our share +and must be withdrawn soon. There's hardly +a battery which does not deserve a dozen +D.S.O.'s with a V.C. or two thrown in.</p> + +<p>It's 4.30 now—you'll be in church and, I hope, +wearing my flowers. Wait till I come back and +you shall go to church with the biggest bunch +of roses that ever were pinned to a feminine +chest. I wonder when that will be.</p> + +<p>We have heaps of humour out here. You +should have seen me this morning, sitting on the +gun-seat while my batman cut my hair. A sand-bag +was spread over my shoulders in place of a +towel and the gun-detachment stood round and +gave advice. I don't know what I look like, for +I haven't dared to gaze into my shaving mirror.</p> + +<p>Good luck to us all,</p> + +<p>CON</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI" />XXI</h2> + +<p>October 18th, 1910</p> + +<p>Dearest M.:</p> + +<p>I've come down to the lines to-day; to-morrow +I go back again. I'm sitting alone in +a deep chalk dug-out—it is 10 p.m. and I have +lit a fire by splitting wood with a bayonet. +Your letters from Montreal reached me yesterday. +They came up in the water-cart when we'd +all begun to despair of mail. It was wonderful +the silence that followed while every one went +back home for a little while, and most of them +met their best girls. We've fallen into the habit +of singing in parts. Jerusalem the Golden +is a great favourite as we wait for our breakfast—we +go through all our favourite songs, including +Poor Old Adam Was My Father. Our +greatest favourite is one which is symbolising +the hopes that are in so many hearts on this +greatest battlefield in history. We sing it under +shell-fire as a kind of prayer, we sing it as +we struggle knee-deep in the appalling mud, we +sing it as we sit by a candle in our deep captured +German dug-outs. It runs like this:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"There's a long, long trail a-winding</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Into the land of my dreams,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Where the nightingales are singing</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And a white moon beams:</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">There's a long, long night of waiting</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Until my dreams all come true;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Till the day when I'll be going down</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">That long, long trail with you."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>You ought to be able to get it, and then you will +be singing it when I'm doing it.</p> + +<p>No, I don't know what to ask from you for +Christmas—unless a plum pudding and a general +surprise box of sweets and food stuffs. If +you don't mind my suggesting it, I wouldn't a +bit mind a Christmas box at once—a schoolboy's +tuck box. I wear the locket, cross, and tie all +the time as kind of charms against danger—they +give me the feeling of loving hands going with +me everywhere.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">God bless you.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Yours ever,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 13.5em;">CON.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII" />XXII</h2> + +<p>October 23, 1916</p> + +<p>Dearest All:</p> + +<p>As you know I have been in action ever +since I left England and am still. I've lived in +various extemporised dwellings and am at present +writing from an eight foot deep hole dug in +the ground and covered over with galvanised +iron and sand-bags. We have made ourselves +very comfortable, and a fire is burning—I correct +that—comfortable until it rains, I should +say, when the water finds its own level. We +have just finished with two days of penetrating +rain and mist—in the trenches the mud was up +to my knees, so you can imagine the joy of wading +down these shell-torn tunnels. Good thick +socks have been priceless.</p> + +<p>You'll be pleased to hear that two days ago +I was made Right Section Commander—which +is fairly rapid promotion. It means a good deal +more work and responsibility, but it gives me a +contact with the men which I like.</p> + +<p>I don't know when I'll get leave—not for another +two months anyway. It would be ripping +if I had word in time for you to run over to +England for the brief nine days.</p> + +<p>I plan novels galore and wonder whether I +shall ever write them the way I see them now. +My imagination is to an extent crushed by the +stupendousness of reality. I think I am changed +in some stern spiritual way—stripped of flabbiness. +I am perhaps harder—I can't say. That +I should be a novelist seems unreasonable—it's +so long since I had my own way in the world +and met any one on artistic terms. But I have +enough ego left to be very interested in my book. +And by the way, when we're out at the front and +the battery wants us to come in they simply +phone up the password, "Slaves of Freedom," +the meaning of which we all understand.</p> + +<p>You are ever in my thoughts, and I pray the +day may not be far distant when we meet again.</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII" />XXIII</h2> + +<p>October 27th, 1916.</p> + +<p>Dearest Family:</p> + +<p>All to-day I've been busy registering our +guns. There is little chance of rest—one would +suppose that we intended to end the war by spring.</p> + +<p>Two new officers joined our battery from +England, which makes the work lighter. One +of them brings the news that D., one of the two +officers who crossed over from England with me +and wandered through France with me in search +of our Division, is already dead. He was a +corking fellow, and I'm very sorry. He was +caught by a shell in the head and legs.</p> + +<p>I am still living in a sand-bagged shell-hole +eight feet beneath the level of the ground. I +have a sleeping bag with an eider-down inside +it, for my bed; it is laid on a stretcher, which +is placed in a roofed-in trench. For meals, +when there isn't a block on the roads, we do very +well; we subscribe pretty heavily to the mess, and +have an officer back at the wagon-lines to do our +purchasing. When we move forward into a new +position, however, we go pretty short, as roads +have to be built for the throng of traffic. Most +of what we eat is tinned—and I never want to +see tinned salmon again when this war is ended. +I have a personal servant, a groom and two +horses—but haven't been on a horse for seven +weeks on account of being in action. We're all +pretty fed up with continuous firing and living +so many hours in the trenches. The way artillery +is run to-day an artillery lieutenant is +more in the trenches than an infantryman—the +only thing he doesn't do is to go over the parapet +in an attack. And one of our chaps did that +the other day, charging the Huns with a bar of +chocolate in one hand and a revolver in the +other. I believe he set a fashion which will be +imitated. Three times in my experience I have +seen the infantry jump out of their trenches +and go across. It's a sight never to be forgotten. +One time there were machine guns behind +me and they sent a message to me, asking me to +lie down and take cover. That was impossible, +as I was observing for my brigade, so I lay on +the parapet till the bullets began to fall too close +for comfort, then I dodged out into a shell-hole +with the German barrage bursting all around +me, and had a most gorgeous view of a modern +attack. That was some time ago, so you needn't +be nervous.</p> + +<p>Have I mentioned rum to you? I never +tasted it to my knowledge until I came out here. +We get it served us whenever we're wet. It's +the one thing which keeps a man alive in the +winter—you can sleep when you're drenched +through and never get a cold if you take it.</p> + +<p>At night, by a fire, eight feet underground, +we sing all the dear old songs. We manage a +kind of glee—Clementina, The Long, Long Trail, +Three Blind Mice, Long, Long Ago, Rock of +Ages. Hymns are quite favourites.</p> + +<p>Don't worry about me; your prayers weave +round me a mantle of defence.</p> + +<p>Yours with more love than I can write,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV" />XXIV</h2> + +<p> +October 31st, 1916.<br /> +Hallowe'en.<br /> +<br /> +Dearest People:<br /> +</p> + +<p>Once more I'm taking the night-firing and +so have a chance to write to you. I got letters +from you all, and they each deserve answers, but +I have so little time to write. We've been having +beastly weather—drowned out of our little +houses below ground, with rivers running through +our beds. The mud is once more up to our knees +and gets into whatever we eat. The wonder is +that we keep healthy—I suppose it's the open air. +My throat never troubles me and I'm free from +colds in spite of wet feet. The main disadvantage +is that we rarely get a chance to wash or +change our clothes. Your ideas of an army with +its buttons all shining is quite erroneous; we look +like drunk and disorderlies who have spent the +night in the gutter—and we have the same instinct +for fighting.</p> + +<p>In the trenches the other day I heard mother's +Suffolk tongue and had a jolly talk with a chap +who shared many of my memories. It was his +first trip in and the Huns were shelling badly, but +he didn't seem at all upset.</p> + +<p>We're still hard at it and have given up all +idea of a rest—the only way we'll get one is with +a blighty. You say how often you tell yourselves +that the same moon looks down on me; it does, +but on a scene how different! We advance over +old battlefields—everything is blasted. If you +start digging, you turn up what's left of something +human. If there were any grounds for superstition, +surely the places in which I have been +should be ghost-haunted. One never thinks +about it. For myself I have increasingly the feeling +that I am protected by your prayers; I tell +myself so when I am in danger.</p> + +<p>Here I sit in an old sweater and muddy +breeches, the very reverse of your picture of a +soldier, and I imagine to myself your receipt of +this. Our chief interest is to enquire whether +milk, jam and mail have come up from the wagon-lines; +it seems a faery-tale that there are places +where milk and jam can be had for the buying. +See how simple we become.</p> + +<p>Poor little house at Kootenay! I hate to think +of it empty. We had such good times there +twelve months ago. They have a song here to a +nursery rhyme lilt, Après le Guerre Finis; it +goes on to tell of all the good times we'll have +when the war is ended. Every night I invent a +new story of my own celebration of the event, +usually, as when I was a kiddie, just before I fall +asleep—only it doesn't seem possible that the war +will ever end.</p> + +<p>I hear from the boys very regularly. There's +just the chance that I may get leave to London +in the New Year and meet them before they set +out. I always picture you with your heads high +in the air. I'm glad to think of you as proud +because of the pain we've made you suffer.</p> + +<p>Once again I shall think of you on Papa's +birthday. I don't think this will be the saddest +he will have to remember. It might have been +if we three boys had still all been with him. If +I were a father, I would prefer at all costs that +my sons should be men. What good comrades +we've always been, and what long years of happy +times we have in memory—all the way down +from a little boy in a sailor-suit to Kootenay!</p> + +<p>I fell asleep in the midst of this. I've now got +to go out and start the other gun firing. With +very much love.</p> + +<p>Yours,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV" />XXV</h2> + +<p>November 1st, 1916.</p> + +<p>My Dearest M.:</p> + +<p>Peace after a storm! Your letter was not +brought up by the water-wagon this evening, but +by an orderly—the mud prevented wheel-traffic. +I was just sitting down to read it when Fritz began +to pay us too much attention. I put down +your letter, grabbed my steel helmet, rushed out +to see where the shells were falling, and then +cleared my men to a safer area. (By the way, +did I tell you that I had been made Right Section +Commander?) After about half an hour I +came back and settled down by a fire made of +smashed ammunition boxes in a stove borrowed +from a ruined cottage. I'm always ashamed that +my letters contain so little news and are so uninteresting. +This thing is so big and dreadful +that it does not bear putting down on paper. I +read the papers with the accounts of singing soldiers +and other rubbish; they depict us as though +we were a lot of hair-brained idiots instead of +men fully realising our danger, who plod on because +it's our duty. I've seen a good many men +killed by now—we all have—consequently the +singing soldier story makes us smile. We've got +a big job; we know that we've got to "Carry +On" whatever happens—so we wear a stern grin +and go to it. There's far more heroism in the +attitude of men out here than in the footlight attitude +that journalists paint for the public. It +isn't a singing matter to go on firing a gun when +gun-pits are going up in smoke within sight of +you.</p> + +<p>What a terrible desecration war is! You go +out one week and look through your glasses at a +green, smiling country-little churches, villages +nestling among woods, white roads running +across a green carpet; next week you see nothing +but ruins and a country-side pitted with shell-holes. +All night the machine guns tap like rivet-ting +machines when a New York sky-scraper is +in the building. Then suddenly in the night a +bombing attack will start, and the sky grows +white with signal rockets. Orders come in for +artillery retaliation, and your guns begin to stamp +the ground like stallions; in the darkness on every +side you can see them snorting fire. Then stillness +again, while Death counts his harvest; the +white rockets grow fainter and less hysterical. +For an hour there is blackness.</p> + +<p>My batman consoles himself with singing,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And smile, smile, smile."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>There's a lot in his philosophy—it's best to go on +smiling even when some one who was once your +pal lies forever silent in his blanket on a +stretcher.</p> + +<p>The great uplifting thought is that we have +proved ourselves men. In our death we set a +standard which in ordinary life we could never +have followed. Inevitably we should have sunk +below our highest self. Here we know that the +world will remember us and that our loved ones, +in spite of tears, will be proud of us. What God +will say to us we cannot guess—but He can't be +too hard on men who did their duty. I think we +all feel that trivial former failures are washed out +by this final sacrifice. When little M. used to +recite "Breathes there a man with soul so dead, +who never to himself had said, 'This is my own, +my native land,'" I never thought that I should +have the chance that has now been given to me. +I feel a great and solemn gratitude that I have +been thought worthy. Life has suddenly become +effective and worthy by reason of its carelessness +of death.</p> + +<p>By the way, that Princeton man I mentioned so +long ago was killed forty yards away from me +on my first trip into the trenches. Probably G. +M'C. and his other friends know by now. He +was the first man I ever saw snuffed out.</p> + +<p>I'm wearing your mittens and find them a great +comfort. I'll look forward to some more of your +socks—I can do with plenty of them. If any of +your friends are making things for soldiers, I +wish you'd get them to send them to this battery, +as they would be gratefully accepted by the men.</p> + +<p>I wish I could come to <i>The Music Master</i> with +you. I wonder how long till we do all those intimately +family things together again.</p> + +<p>Good-bye, my dearest M. I live for home letters +and am rarely disappointed.</p> + +<p>God bless you, and love to you all.</p> + +<p>Yours ever,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI" />XXVI</h2> + +<p>November 4th, 1916.</p> + + +<p>My Dearest Mother:</p> + +<p>This morning I was wakened up in the +gunpit where I was sleeping by the arrival of the +most wonderful parcel of mail. It was really a +kind of Christmas morning for me. My servant +had lit a fire in a punctured petrol can and the +place looked very cheery. First of all entered an +enormous affair, which turned out to be a stove +which C. had sent. Then there was a sand-bag +containing all your gifts. You may bet I made +for that first, and as each knot was undone remembered +the loving hands that had done it up. +I am now going up to a twenty-four-hour shift +of observing, and shall take up the malted milk +and some blocks of chocolate for a hot drink. +It somehow makes you seem very near to me to +receive things packed with your hands. When +I go forward I shall also take candles and a copy +of <i>Anne Veronica</i> with me, so that if I get a +chance I can forget time.</p> + +<p>Always when I write to you odds and ends +come to mind, smacking of local colour. After +an attack some months ago I met a solitary private +wandering across a shell-torn field, I +watched him and thought something was wrong +by the aimlessness of his progress. When I +spoke to him, he looked at me mistily and said, +"Dead men. Moonlit road." He kept on repeating +the phrase, and it was all that one could +get out of him. Probably the dead men and the +moonlit road were the last sights he had seen before +he went insane.</p> + +<p>Another touching thing happened two days ago. +A Major turned up who had travelled fifty miles +by motor lorries and any conveyance he could +pick up on the road. He had left his unit to +come to have a glimpse of our front-line trench +where his son was buried. The boy had died +there some days ago in going over the parapet. I +persuaded him that he ought not to go alone, and +that in any case it wasn't a healthy spot. At last +he consented to let me take him to a point from +which he could see the ground over which his +son had attacked and led his men. The sun +was sinking behind us. He stood there very +straightly, peering through my glasses—and then +forgot all about me and began speaking to his son +in childish love-words. "Gone West," they call +dying out here—we rarely say that a man is dead. +I found out afterwards that it was the boy's +mother the Major was thinking of when he +pledged himself to visit the grave in the front-line.</p> + +<p>But there are happier things than that. For +instance, you should hear us singing at night in +our dug-out—every tune we ever learnt, I believe. +Silver Threads Among the Gold, In the +Gloaming, The Star of Bethlehem, I Hear You +Calling Me, interspersed with Everybody Works +but Father, and Poor Old Adam, etc.</p> + +<p>I wish I could know in time when I get my +leave for you to come over and meet me. I'm +going to spend my nine days in the most glorious +ways imaginable. To start with I won't eat anything +that's canned and, to go on, I won't get out +of bed till I feel inclined. And if you're +there—!</p> + +<p>Dreams and nonsense! God bless you all and +keep us near and safe though absent. Alive or +"Gone West" I shall never be far from you; you +may depend on that—and I shall always hope to +feel you brave and happy. This is a great +game—cheese-mites pitting themselves against all +the splendours of Death. Please, please write +well ahead, so that I may not miss your Christmas +letters.</p> + +<p>Yours lovingly,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII" />XXVII</h2> + +<p>November 6th, 1916.</p> + + +<p>My Dear Ones:</p> + +<p>Such a wonderful day it has been—I +scarcely know where to start. I came down last +night from twenty-four hours in the mud, where +I had been observing. I'd spent the night in a +hole dug in the side of the trench and a dead +Hun forming part of the roof. I'd sat there re-living +so many things—the ecstatic moments of +my life when I first touched fame—and my feet +were so cold that I could not feel them, so I +thought all the harder of the pleasant things of +the past. Then, as I say, I came back to the gun +position to learn that I was to have one day off +at the back of the lines. You can't imagine what +that meant to me—one day in a country that is +green, one day where there is no shell-fire, one +day where you don't turn up corpses with your +tread! For two months I have never left the +guns except to go forward and I have never been +from under shell-fire. All night long as I have +slept the ground had been shaken by the stamping +of the guns—and now after two months, to +come back to comparative normality! The reason +for this privilege being granted was that the +powers that he had come to the conclusion that +it was time I had a bath. Since I sleep in my +clothes and water is too valuable for washing +anything but the face and hands, they were probably +right in their guess at my condition.</p> + +<p>So with the greatest holiday of my life in prospect +I went to the empty gunpit in which I sleep, +and turned in. This morning I set out early with +my servant, tramping back across the long, long +battlefields which our boys have won. The mud +was knee-deep in places, but we floundered on +till we came to our old and deserted gun-position +where my horses waited for me. From there I +rode to the wagon-lines—the first time I've sat +a horse since I came into action. Far behind +me the thunder of winged murder grew +more faint. The country became greener; trees +even had leaves upon them which fluttered against +the grey-blue sky. It was wonderful—like +awaking from an appalling nightmare. My little +beast was fresh and seemed to share my joy, +for she stepped out bravely.</p> + +<p>When I arrived at the wagon-lines I would not +wait—I longed to see something even greener and +quieter. My groom packed up some oats and +away we went again. My first objective was the +military baths; I lay in hot water for half-an-hour +and read the advertisements of my book. +As I lay there, for the first time since I've been +out, I began to get a half-way true perspective of +myself. What's left of the egotism of the author +came to life, and—now laugh—I planned my next +novel—planned it to the sound of men singing, +because they were clean for the first time in +months. I left my towels and soap with a military +policeman, by the roadside, and went prancing +off along country roads in search of the almost +forgotten places where people don't kill one +another. Was it imagination? There seemed +to me to be a different look in the faces of the +men I met—for the time being they were neither +hunters nor hunted. There were actually cows +in the fields. At one point, where pollarded trees +stand like a Hobbema sketch against the sky, a +group of officers were coursing a hare, following +a big black hound on horseback. We lost our +way. A drenching rainstorm fell over us—we +didn't care; and we saw as we looked back a +most beautiful thing—a rainbow over green fields. +It was as romantic as the first rainbow in childhood.</p> + +<p>All day I have been seeing lovely and familiar +things as though for the first time. I've been a +sort of Lazarus, rising out of his tomb and praising +God at the sound of a divine voice. You +don't know how exquisite a ploughed field can +look, especially after rain, unless you have feared +that you might never see one again.</p> + +<p>I came to a grey little village, where civilians +were still living, and then to a gate and a garden. +In the cottage was a French peasant woman who +smiled, patted my hair because it was curly, and +chattered interminably. The result was a huge +omelette and a bottle of champagne. Then came +a touch of naughtiness—a lady visitor with a +copy of <i>La Vie Parisienne</i>, which she promptly +bestowed on the English soldier. I read it, and +dreamt of the time when I should walk the +Champs Elysées again. It was growing dusk +when I turned back to the noise of battle. There +was a white moon in a milky sky. Motor-bikes +fled by me, great lorries driven by Jehus from +London buses, and automobiles which too poignantly +had been Strand taxis and had taken lovers +home from the Gaiety. I jogged along thinking +very little, but supremely happy. Now I'm back +at the wagon-line; to-morrow I go back to the +guns. Meanwhile I write to you by a guttering +candle.</p> + +<p>Life, how I love you! What a wonderful +kindly thing I could make of you to-night. +Strangely the vision has come to me of all that +you mean. Now I could write. So soon you +may go from me or be changed into a form of +existence which all my training has taught me +to dread. After death is there only nothingness? +I think that for those who have missed love in +this life there must be compensations—the little +children whom they ought to have had, perhaps. +To-day, after so many weeks, I have seen little +children again.</p> + +<p>And yet, so strange a havoc does this war work +that, if I have to "Go West," I shall go <i>proudly</i> +and quietly. I have seen too many men die +bravely to make a fuss if my turn comes. A +mixed passenger list old Father Charon must +have each night—Englishmen, Frenchmen, and +Huns. To-morrow I shall have another sight +of the greenness and then—the guns.</p> + +<p>I don't know whether I have been able to make +any of my emotions clear to you in my letters. +Terror has a terrible fascination. Up to now I +have always been afraid—afraid of small fears. +At last I meet fear itself and it stings my pride +into an unpremeditated courage.</p> + +<p>I've just had a pile of letters from you all. +How ripping it is to be remembered! Letters +keep one civilised.</p> + +<p>It's late and I'm very tired. God bless you +each and all.</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII" />XXVIII</h2> + +<p>November 15th, 1916.</p> + + +<p>Dear Father:</p> + +<p>I've owed you a letter for some time, but +I've been getting very little leisure. You can't +send steel messages to the Kaiser and love-notes +to your family in the same breath.</p> + +<p>I am amazed at the spirit you three are showing +and almighty proud that you can muster +such courage. I suppose none of us quite realised +our strength till it came to the test. There +was a time when we all doubted our own heroism. +I think we were typical of our age. Every novel +of the past ten years has been more or less a +study in sentiment and self-distrust. We used +to wonder what kind of stuff Drake's men were +made of that they could jest while they died. +We used to contrast ourselves with them to our +own disfavour. Well, we know now that when +there's a New World to be discovered we can +still rise up reincarnated into spiritual pirates. +It wasn't the men of our age who were at fault, +but the New World that was lacking. Our New +World is the Kingdom of Heroism, the doors of +which are flung so wide that the meanest of us +may enter. I know men out here who are the +dependable daredevils of their brigades, who in +peace times were nuisances and as soon as peace +is declared will become nuisances again. At the +moment they're fine, laughing at Death and smiling +at the chance of agony. There's a man I +know of who had a record sheet of crimes. +When he was out of action he was always drunk +and up for office. To get rid of him, they put +him into the trench mortars and within a month +he had won his D.C.M. He came out and went +on the spree—this particular spree consisted in +stripping a Highland officer of his kilts on a +moonlight night. For this he was sentenced to +several months in a military prison, but asked to +be allowed to serve his sentence in the trenches. +He came out from his punishment a King's sergeant—which +means that whatever he did nobody +could degrade him. He got this for lifting +his trench mortar over the parapet when all the +detachment were killed. Carrying it out into a +shell-hole, he held back the Hun attack and saved +the situation. He got drunk again, and again +chose to be returned to the trenches. This time +his head was blown off while he was engaged in +a special feat of gallantry. What are you to say +to such men? Ordinarily they'd be blackguards, +but war lifts them into splendour. In the same +way you see mild men, timid men, almost girlish +men, carrying out duties which in other wars +would have won V.C.'s. I don't think the soul +of courage ever dies out of the race any more +than the capacity for love. All it means is that +the occasion is not present. For myself I try +to analyse my emotions; am I simply numb, or +do I imitate other people's coolness and shall I +fear life again when the war is ended? There +is no explanation save the great army phrase +"Carry on." We "carry on" because, if we +don't, we shall let other men down and put their +lives in danger. And there's more than that—we +all want to live up to the standard that +prompted us to come.</p> + +<p>One talks about splendour—but war isn't +splendid except in the individual sense. A man +by his own self-conquest can make it splendid +for himself, but in the massed sense it's squalid. +There's nothing splendid about a battlefield when +the fight is ended—shreds of what once were men, +tortured, levelled landscapes—the barbaric loneliness +of Hell. I shall never forget my first dead +man. He was a signalling officer, lying in the +dawn on a muddy hill. I thought he was asleep +at first, but when I looked more closely, I saw +that his shoulder blade was showing white +through his tunic. He was wearing black boots. +It's odd, but the sight of black boots have the +same effect on me now that black and white +stripes had in childhood. I have the superstitious +feeling that to wear them would bring me +bad luck.</p> + +<p>Tonight we've been singing in parts, Back +in the Dear Dead Days Beyond Recall—a mournful +kind of ditty to sing under the circumstances—so +mournful that we had to have a game +of five hundred to cheer us up.</p> + +<p>It's now nearly 2 a.m., and I have to go out to +the guns again before I go to bed. I carry your +letters about in my pockets and read them at odd +intervals in all kinds of places that you can't +imagine.</p> + +<p>Cheer up and remember that I'm quite happy. +I wish you could be with me for just one day +to understand.</p> + +<p>Yours,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX" />XXIX</h2> + +<p>December 3rd, 1916.</p> + + +<p>Dear Boys:</p> + +<p>By this time you will be all through your +exams and I hope have both passed. It'll be +splendid if you can go together to the same station. +You envy me, you say; well, I rather envy +you. I'd like to be with you. You, at least, +don't have Napoleon's fourth antagonist with +which to contend—mud. But at present I'm +clean and billeted in an estaminet, in a not too +bad little village. There's an old mill and still +older church, and the usual farmhouses with the +indispensable pile of manure under the front +windows. We shall have plenty of hard work +here, licking our men into shape and re-fitting.</p> + +<p>You know how I've longed to sleep between +sheets; I can now, but find them so cold that I +still use my sleeping bag—such is human inconsistency. +But yesterday I had a boiling bath—as +good a bath as could be found in a New York +hotel—and I am CLEAN.</p> + +<p>I woke up this morning to hear some one singing +Casey Jones—consequently I thought of +former Christmases. My mind has been travelling +back very much of late. Suddenly I see +something here which reminds me of the time +when E. and I were at Lisieux, or even of our +Saturday excursions to Nelson when we were all +together at the ranch.</p> + +<p>Did I tell you that B., our officer who was +wounded two months ago, has just returned to +us. This morning he got news that his young +brother has been killed in the place which we have +left. I wonder when we shall grow tired of +stabbing and shooting and killing. It seems to me +that the war cannot end in less than two years.</p> + +<p>I have made myself nice to the Brigade interpreter +and he has found me a delightful room +with electric light and a fire. It's in an old +farmhouse with a brick terrace in front. My +room is on the ground floor and tile-paved. The +chairs are rush-bottomed and there are old quaint +china plates on the shelves. There is also a +quite charming mademoiselle. So you see, you +don't need to pity me any more.</p> + +<p>Just at present I'm busy getting up the Brigade +Christmas Entertainment. The Colonel asked +me to do it, otherwise I should have said <i>no</i>, as +I want all the time I can get to myself. You +can't think how jolly it is to sit again in a room +which is temporarily yours after living in dug-outs, +herded side by side with other men. I can +be <i>me</i> now, and not a soldier of thousands when +I write. You shall hear from me again soon. +Hope you're having a ripping time in London.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Yours ever,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 14.5em;">CON.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXX" id="XXX" />XXX</h2> + +<p>December 5th, 1916.</p> + +<p>DEAREST M.:</p> + +<p>I've just come in from my last tour of +inspection as orderly officer, and it's close on +midnight. I'm getting this line off to you to let +you know that I expect to get my nine days' +leave about the beginning of January. How I +wish it were possible to have you in London when +I arrive, or, failing that, to spend my leave in +New York!</p> + +<p>To-morrow I make an early start on horseback +for a market of the old-fashioned sort which +is held at a town near by. Can you dimly picture +me with my groom, followed by a mess-cart, +going from stall to stall and bartering with +the peasants? It'll be rather good fun and something +quite out of my experience.</p> + +<p>Christmas will be over by the time you get this, +and I do hope that you had a good one. I paused +to talk to the other officers; they say that they +are sure that you are very beautiful and have a +warm heart, and would like to send them a five-storey +layer cake, half a dozen bottles of port +and one Paris chef. At present I am the Dives +of the mess and dole out luxuries to these Lazaruses.</p> + +<p>Good-bye for the present.</p> + +<p>Yours ever lovingly,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI" />XXXI</h2> + +<p>December 6th, 1916.</p> + + +<p>Dearest M.:</p> + +<p>I've just undone your Christmas parcels, +and already I am wearing the waistcoat and +socks, and my mouth is hot with the ginger.</p> + +<p>I expect to get leave for England on January +10th. I do wish it might be possible for some +of you to cross the ocean and be in London with +me—and I don't see what there is to prevent you. +Unless the war ends sooner than any of us expect, +it is not likely that I shall get another leave +in less than nine months. So, if you want to +come and if there's time when you receive this +letter, just hop on a boat and let's see what London +looks like together.</p> + +<p>I wonder what kind of a Christmas you'll have. +I shall picture it all. You may hear me tiptoeing +up the stairs if you listen very hard. Where +does the soul go in sleep? Surely mine flies back +to where all of you dear people are.</p> + +<p>I came back to my farm yesterday to find a +bouquet of paper flowers at the head of my bed +with a note pinned on it. Over my fire-place was +hung a pathetic pair of farm-girls' heavy Sunday +boots, all brightly polished, with two other +notes pinned on them. The Feast of St. Nicholas +on December 7th is an opportunity for unmarried +men to be reminded that there are unmarried +girls in the world—wherefore the flowers. +I enclose the notes. Keep them,—they may be +useful for a book some day.</p> + +<p>I'm having a pretty good rest, and am still in +my old farmhouse.</p> + +<p>Love to all.</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII" />XXXII</h2> + +<p>December 15th, 1916.</p> + + +<p>Dearest All:</p> + +<p>At the present I'm just where mother +hoped I'd be—in a deep dug-out about twenty +feet down—we're trying to get a fire lighted, and +consequently the place is smoked out. Where +I'll be for Christmas I don't know, but I hope +by then to be in billets. I've just come back from +the trenches, where I've been observing. The +mud is not nearly so bad where I am now, and +with a few days' more work, we should be quite +comfortable. You'll have received my cable +about my getting leave soon—I'm wondering +whether the Atlantic is sufficiently quiet for any +of you to risk a crossing.</p> + +<p>Poor Basil! Your letter was the first news I +got of his death. I must have watched the attack +in which he lost his life. One wonders now +how it was that some instinct did not warn me +that one of those khaki dots jumping out of the +trenches was the cousin who stayed with us in +London.</p> + +<p>I'm wondering what this mystery of the German +Chancellor is all about—some peace proposals, +I suppose—which are sure to prove bombastic +and unacceptable. It seems to us out here +as though the war must go on forever. Like +a boy's dream of the far-off freedom of manhood, +the day appears when we shall step out into +the old liberty of owning our own lives. What +a celebration we'll have when I come home! I +can't quite grasp the joy of it.</p> + +<p>I've got to get this letter off quite soon if it's +to go to-day. It ought to reach, you by January +12th or thereabouts. You may be sure my +thoughts will have been with you on Christmas +day. I shall look back and remember all the by-gone +good times and then plan for Christmas, +1917. God keep us all.</p> + +<p>Ever yours,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII" />XXXIII</h2> + +<p>December 18th, 1916.</p> + +<p>My Dearest M.:</p> + +<p>I always feel when I write a joint letter +to the family that I'm cheating each one of you, +but it's so very difficult to get time to write as +often as I'd like. It's a week to Christmas and +I picture the beginnings of the preparations. I +can look back and remember so many such +preparations, especially when we were kiddies in +London. What good times one has in a life! +I've been sitting with my groom by the fire to-night +while he dried my clothes. I've mentioned +him to you before as having lived in Nelson, and +worked at the Silver King mine. We both grew +ecstatic over British Columbia.</p> + +<p>I am hoping all the time that the boys may be +in England at the time I get my leave—I hardly +dare hope that any of you will be there. But +it would he grand if you could manage it—I long +very much to see you all again. I can just +imagine my first month home again. I shan't +let any of you work. I shall be the incurable +boy. I've spent the best part of to-day out in +No Man's Land, within seventy yards of the +Huns. Quite an experience, I assure you, and +one that I wouldn't have missed for worlds. I'll +have heaps to write into novels one day—the +vividest kind of local colour. Just at present I +have nothing to read but the Christmas number +of the <i>Strand</i>. It makes me remember the time +when we children raced for the latest development +of <i>The Hound of the Baskervilles</i>, and so +many occasions when I had one of "those sniffy +colds" and sat by the Highbury fire with a book. +Good days, those!</p> + +<p>I'm just off to bed now, and will finish this to-morrow. +Bed is my greatest luxury nowadays.</p> + +<p>December 19th.</p> + +<p>The book and chocolate just came, and a bunch +of New York papers. All were most welcome. +I was longing for something to read. To-morrow +I have to go forward to observe. Two of +our officers are on leave, so it makes the rest of +us work pretty hard. What do you think of +the Kaiser's absurd peace proposals? The man +must be mad.</p> + +<p>The best of love,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV" />XXXIV</h2> + +<p>December 20th, 1916.</p> + +<p>Dear Mr. T.:</p> + +<p>Just back from a successful argument with +Fritz, to find your kind good wishes. It's rather +a lark out here, though a lark which may turn +against you any time. I laugh a good deal more +than I mope. Anything really horrible has a +ludicrous side—it's like Mark Twain's humour—a +gross exaggeration. The maddest thing of all +to me is that a person so willing to be amiable +as I am should be out here killing people for +principle's sake. There's no rhyme or reason—it +can't be argued. Dimly one thinks he sees +what is right and leaves father and mother and +home, as though it were for the Kingdom of +Heaven's sake. Perhaps it is. If one didn't pin +his faith to that "perhaps"—. One can't explain.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">A merry Christmas to you.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Yours very sincerely,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">CONINGSBY DAWSON.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<h2><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV" />XXXV</h2> + +<p>December 20th, 1916.</p> + +<p>Dear Mr. A.D.:</p> + +<p>I've just come in from an argument with +Fritz when your chocolate formed my meal. +You were very kind to think of me and to send +it, and you were extraordinarily understanding in +the letter that you sent me. One's life out here +is like a pollarded tree—all the lower branches +are gone—one gazes on great nobilities, on the +fascinating horror of Eternity sometimes—I said +horror, but it's often fine in its spaciousness—one +gazes on many inverted splendours of Titans, +but it's giddy work being so high and rarefied, +and all the gentle past seems gone. That's why +it is pleasant in this grimy anonymity of death +and courage to get reminders, such as your letter, +that one was once localised and had a familiar +history. If I come back, I shall be like Rip Van +Winkle, or a Robinson Crusoe—like any and all +of the creatures of legend and history to whom +abnormality has grown to seem normal. If you +can imagine yourself living in a world in which +every day is a demonstration of a Puritan's conception +of what happens when the last trump +sounds, then you have some idea of my queer +situation. One has come to a point when death +seems very inconsiderable and only failure to +do one's duty is an utter loss. Love and the future, +and all the sweet and tender dreams of by-gone +days are like a house in which the blinds +are lowered and from which the sight has gone. +Landscapes have lost their beauty, everything +God-made and man-made is destroyed except +man's power to endure with a smile the things +he once most dreaded, because he believes that +only so may he be righteous in his own eyes. +How one has longed for that sure confidence in +the petty failings of little living—the confidence +to believe that he can stand up and suffer for +principle! God has given all men who are out +here that opportunity—the supremest that can be +hoped for—so, in spite of exile, Christmas for +most of us will be a happy day. Does one see +more truly life's worth on a battlefield? I often +ask myself that question. Is the contempt that is +hourly shown for life the real standard of life's +worth? I shrug my shoulders at my own unanswerable +questions—all I know is that I move +daily with men who have everything to live for +who, nevertheless, are urged by an unconscious +magnanimity to die. I don't think any of our +dead pity themselves—but they would have done +so if they had faltered in their choice. One lives +only from sunrise to sunrise, but there's a more +real happiness in this brief living than I ever +knew before, because it is so exactingly worth +while.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Thank you again for your kindness.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Very sincerely yours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 19.5em;">C.D.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The suggestion that we might all meet in +London in January, 1917, was a hope rather +than an expectation. We received a cable from +France on Sunday, December 17th, 1916, and +left New York on December 30th. We were met +in London by the two sailor-sons, who were expecting +appointments at any moment, and Coningsby +arrived late in the evening of January +13th. He was unwell when he arrived, having +had a near touch of pneumonia. The day before +he left the front he had been in action, with +a temperature of 104. There were difficulties +about getting his leave at the exact time appointed, +but these he overcame by exchanging +leave with a brother-officer. He travelled from +the Front all night in a windowless train, and +at Calais was delayed by a draft of infantry +which he had to take over to England. The consequence +of this delay was that the meeting at +the railway station, of which he had so long +dreamed, did not come off. We spent a long +day, going from station to station, misled by imperfect +information as to the arrival of troop +trains. At Victoria Station we saw two thousand +troops arrive on leave, men caked with +trench-mud, but he was not among them. We +reluctantly returned to our hotel in the late afternoon +and gave up expecting him. There was all +the time a telegram at the hotel from him, giving +the exact place and time of his arrival, but it +was not delivered until it was too late to meet +him. He arrived at ten o'clock, and at the same +time his two brothers, who had been summoned +in the morning to Southampton, entered the hotel, +having been granted special leave to return to +London. A night's rest did wonders for Coningsby, +and the next day his spirits were as high +as in the old days of joyous holiday. During +the next eight days we lived at a tense pitch of +excitement. We went to theatres, dined in restaurants, +met friends, and heard from his lips a +hundred details of his life which could not be +communicated in letters. We were all thrilled +by the darkened heroic London through which +we moved, the London which bore its sorrows +so proudly, and went about its daily life with +such silent courage. We visited old friends to +whom the war had brought irreparable bereavements, +but never once heard the voice of self-pity, +of murmur or complaint. To me it was +an incredible England; an England purged of all +weakness, stripped of flabbiness, regenerated by +sacrifice. I had dreamed of no such transformation +by anything I had read in American newspapers +and magazines. I think no one can +imagine the completeness of this rebirth of the +soul of England who has not dwelt, if only for +a few days, among its people.</p> + +<p>Coningsby's brief leave expired all too soon. +We saw him off from Folkestone, and while +we were saying good-bye to him, his two brothers +were on their way to their distant appointments +with the Royal Naval Motor Patrol in the North +of Scotland. We left Liverpool for New York +on January 27th, and while at sea heard of the +diplomatic break between America and Germany. +The news was received on board the <i>S.S. St. +Paul</i> with rejoicing. It was Sunday, and the religious +service on board concluded with the Star-Spangled +Banner.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI" />XXXVI</h2> + +<p>December 28th, 1916.</p> + +<p>Dearest All:</p> + +<p>I'm writing you this letter because I expect +to-night is a busy-packing one with you. +The picture is in my mind of you all. How +splendid it is of you to come! I never thought +you would really, not even in my wildest dream +of optimism. There have been so many times +when I scarcely thought that I would ever see +you again—now the unexpected and hoped-for +happens. It's ripping!</p> + +<p>I've put in an application for special leave in +case the ordinary leave should be cut off. I think +I'm almost certain to arrive by the 11th. Won't +we have a time? I wonder what we'll want to +do most—sit quiet or go to theatres? The nine +days of freedom—the wonderful nine days—will +pass with most tragic quickness. But they'll be +days to remember as long as life lasts.</p> + +<p>Shall I see you standing on the station when +I puff into London—or will it be Folkestone +where we meet—or shall I arrive before you? +I somehow think it will be you who will meet me +at the barrier at Charing Cross, and we'll taxi +through the darkened streets down the Strand, +and back to our privacy. How impossible it +sounds—like a vision of heart's desire in the +night.</p> + +<p>Far, far away I see the fine home-coming, like +a lamp burning in a dark night. I expect we +shall all go off our heads with joy and be madder +than ever. Who in the old London days would +have imagined such a nine days of happiness in +the old places as we are to have together.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">God bless you, till we meet,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18.5em;">CON.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII" />XXXVII</h2> + +<p>January 4th, 1917.</p> + +<p>10.30 p.m.</p> + +<p>MY DEAREST ONES:</p> + +<p>This letter is written to welcome you to +England, but I may be with you when it is opened. +It was glorious news to hear that you were coming—I +was only playing a forlorn bluff when I +sent those cables. You're on the sea at present +and should be half way over. Our last trip +over together you marvelled at the apparent indifference +of the soldiers on board, and now +you're coming to meet one of your own fresh +from the Front. A change!</p> + +<p>O what a nine days we're going to have together—the +most wonderful that were ever spent. +I dream of them, tell myself tales about them, +live them over many times in imagination before +they are realised. Sometimes I'm going to +have no end of sleep, sometimes I'm going to +keep awake every second, sometimes I'm going +to sit quietly by a fire, and sometimes I'm going +to taxi all the time. I can't fit your faces into +the picture—it seems too unbelievable that we +are to be together once again. To-day I've been +staging our meeting—if you arrive first, and then +if I arrive before you, and lastly if we both hit +London on the same day. You mustn't expect +me to be a sane person. You're three rippers to +do this—and I hope you'll have an easy journey. +The only ghost is the last day, when the leave +train pulls out of Charing Cross. But we'll do +that smiling, too; C'est la guerre.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Yours always and ever, CON.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII" />XXXVIII</h2> + +<p>January 6th, 1917.</p> + +<p>MY DEAR ONES:</p> + +<p>I have just seen a brother officer aboard +the ex-London bus en route for Blighty. How +I wished I could have stepped on board that ex-London +perambulator to-night! "Pickerdilly +Cirkuss, 'Ighbury, 'Ighgate, Welsh 'Arp—all the +wye." O my, what a time I'll have when I +meet you! I shall feel as though if anything +happens to me after my return you'll be able to +understand so much more bravely. These blinkered +letters, with only writing and no touch of +live hands, convey so little. When we've had a +good time together and sat round the fire and +talked interminably you'll be able to read so +much more between the lines of my future letters. +To-morrow you ought to land in England, +and to-morrow night you should sleep in London. +I am trying to swop my leave with another man, +otherwise it won't come till the 15th. I am looking +forward every hour to those miraculous nine +days which we are to have together. You can't +imagine with your vividest imagination the contrast +between nine days with you in London and +my days where I am now. A battalion went by +yesterday, marching into action, and its band was +playing I've a Sneakin' Feelin' in My Heart +That I Want to Settle Down. We all have that +sneaking feeling from time to time. I tell myself +wonderful stories in the early dark mornings and +become the architect of the most wonderful futures.</p> + +<p>I'm coming to join you just as soon as I +know how—at the worst I'll be in London on the +16th of this month.</p> + +<p>Ever yours,</p> + +<p>CON.</p> + + +<p><i>The following letters were written after Coningsby +had met his family in London.</i></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXIX" id="XXXIX" />XXXIX</h2> + + +<p>January 24th, 1917.</p> + +<p>MY DEAR ONES:</p> + +<p>I have had a chance to write you sooner +than I expected, as I stopped the night where I +disembarked, and am catching my train to-day.</p> + +<p>It's strange to be back and under orders after +nine days' freedom. Directly I landed I was detailed +to march a party—it was that that made me +lose my train—not that I objected, for I got one +more sleep between sheets. I picked up on the +boat in the casual way one does, with three other +officers, so on landing we made a party to dine +together, and had a very decent evening. I +wasn't wanting to remember too much then, so +that was why I didn't write letters.</p> + +<p>What good times we have to look back on +and how much to be thankful for, that we met +altogether. Now we must look forward to the +summer and, perhaps, the end of the war. What +a mad joy will sweep across the world on the +day that peace is declared!</p> + +<p>This visit will have made you feel that you +have a share in all that's happening over here +and are as real a part of it as any of us. I'm +awfully proud of you for your courage.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Yours lovingly,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 17em;">CON.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XL" id="XL" />XL</h2> + +<p>January 26th, 1917.</p> + +<p>MY VERY DEAR ONES:</p> + +<p>Here I am back—my nine days' leave a +dream. I got into our wagon-lines last night +after midnight, having had a cold ride along +frozen roads through white wintry country. I +was only half-expected, so my sleeping-bag hadn't +been unpacked. I had to wake my batman and +tramp about a mile to the billet; by the time I +got there every one was asleep, so I spread out +my sleeping-sack and crept in very quietly. For +the few minutes before my eyes closed I pictured +London, the taxis, the gay parties, the mystery +of lights. I was roused this morning with +the news that I had to go up to the gun-position +at once. I stole just sufficient time to pick up a +part of my accumulated mail, then got on my +horse and set out. At the guns, I found that I +was due to report as liaison officer, so here I am +in the trenches again writing to you by candle-light. +How wonderfully we have bridged the +distance in spending those nine whole days together. +And now it is over, and I am back in the +trenches, and to-morrow you're sailing for New +York.</p> + +<p>I can't tell you what the respite has meant to +me. There have been times when my whole past +life has seemed a myth and the future an endless +prospect of carrying on. Now I can distantly +hope that the old days will return.</p> + +<p>When I was in London half my mind was at +the Front; now that I'm back in the trenches half +my mind is in London. I re-live our gay times +together; I go to cosy little dinners; I sit with +you in the stalls, listening to the music; then I +tumble off to sleep, and dream, and wake up to +find the dream a delusion. It's a fine and +manly contrast, however, between the game one +plays out here and the fretful trivialities of +civilian life.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLI" id="XLI" />XLI</h2> + +<p>January 27th.</p> + + +<p>I got as far as this and then "something" happened. +Twenty-four hours have gone by and +once more it's nearly midnight and I write to you +by candle-light. Since last night I've been with +these infantry boy-officers who are doing such +great work in such a careless spirit of jolliness. +Any softness which had crept into me during my +nine days of happiness has gone. I'm glad to be +out here and wouldn't wish to be anywhere else +till the war is ended.</p> + +<p>It's a week to-day since we were at <i>Charlie's +Aunt</i>—such a cheerful little party! I expect the +boys are doing their share of remembering too +somewhere on the sea at present. I know you +are, as you round the coast of Ireland and set +out for the Atlantic.</p> + +<p>I've not been out of my clothes for three days +and I've another day to go yet. I brought my +haversack into the trenches with me; on opening +it I found that some kind hands had slipped +into it some clean socks and a bottle of Horlick's +Malted Milk tablets.</p> + +<p>The signallers in a near-by dug-out are singing +Keep the Home-Fires Burning Till the Boys +Come Home. That's what we're all doing, +isn't it—you at your end and we at ours? The +brief few days of possessing myself are over and +once more stern duty lies ahead. But I thank God +for the chance I've had to see again those whom +I love, and to be able to tell them with my own +lips some of the bigness of our life at the Front. +No personal aims count beside the great privilege +which is ours to carry on until the war is over.</p> + +<p>All my thoughts are with you—so many memories +of kindness. I keep on picturing things I +ought to have done—things I ought to have +told you. Always I can see, Oh, so vividly, +the two sailor brothers waving good-bye as +the train moved off through the London dusk, +and then that other and forlorner group of +three, standing outside the dock gates with +the sentry like the angel in Eden, turning them +back from happiness. With an extraordinary +aloofness I watched myself moving like a puppet +away from you whom I love most dearly +in all the world—going away as if going were a +thing so usual.</p> + +<p>I'm asking myself again if there isn't some +new fineness of spirit which will develop from +this war and survive it. In London, at a distance +from all this tragedy of courage, I felt that +I had slipped back to a lower plane; a kind of +flabbiness was creeping into my blood—the old +selfish fear of life and love of comfort. It's odd +that out here, where the fear of death should +supplant the fear of life, one somehow rises into +a contempt for everything which is not bravest. +There's no doubt that the call for sacrifice, and +perhaps the supreme sacrifice, can transform men +into a nobility of which they themselves are unconscious. +That's the most splendid thing of +all, that they themselves are unaware of their +fineness.</p> + +<p>I'm now waiting to be relieved and am hurrying +to finish this so that I may mail it as soon +as I get back to the battery. There's a whole +sack of letters and parcels waiting for me there, +and I'm as eager to get to them as a kiddy to +inspect his Christmas stocking. I always undo +the string and wrappings with a kind of reverence, +trying to picture the dear kneeling figures +who did them up. In London I didn't dare to +let myself go with you—I couldn't say all that +was in my heart—it wouldn't have been wise. +Don't ever doubt that the tenderness was there. +Even though one is only a civilian in khaki, some +of the soldier's sternness becomes second nature.</p> + +<p>All the country is covered with snow—it's brilliant +clear weather, more like America than +Europe. I'm feeling strong as a horse, ever so +much better than I felt when on leave. Life is +really tremendously worth living, in spite of the +war.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLII" id="XLII" />XLII</h2> + +<p>January 28th.</p> + +<p>I'm back at the battery, sitting by a cosy fire. +I might be up at Kootenay by the look of my +surroundings. I'm in a shack with a really truly +floor, and a window looking out on moonlit whiteness. +If it wasn't for the tapping of the distant +machine guns—tapping that always sounds to me +like the nailing up of coffins—I might be here +for pleasure. In imagination I can see your +great ship, with all its portholes aglare, ploughing +across the darkness to America. The dear +sailor brothers I can't quite visualise; I can only +see them looking so upright and pale when we +said good-bye. It's getting late and the fire's +dying. I'm half asleep; I've not been out of my +clothes for three nights. I shall tell myself a +story of the end of the war and our next meeting—it'll +last from the time that I creep into my +sack until I close my eyes. It's a glorious life.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Yours very lovingly,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18.5em;">CON</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLIII" id="XLIII" />XLIII</h2> + +<p>January 31st, 1917.</p> + +<p>DEAR MR. AND MRS. M.:</p> + +<p>It was extremely good of you to remember +me. I got back from leave in London on +the 26th and found the cigarettes waiting for +me. One hasn't got an awful lot of pleasures +left, but smoking is one of them. I feel particularly +doggy when I open my case and find +my initials on them.</p> + +<p>I expect you'll have heard all the news of my +leave long before this reaches you. We had a +splendid time and the greatest of luck. My +sailor brothers were with me all but two days, +and my people were in England only a few days +before I arrived.</p> + +<p>This is a queer adventure for a peaceable person +like myself—it blots out all the past and reduces +the future to a speck. One hardly hopes +that things will ever be different, but looks forward +to interminable years of carrying on. My +leave rather corrected that frame of mind; it came +as a surprise to be forced to realise that not all +the world was living under orders on woman less, +childless battlefields. But we don't need +any pity—we manage our good times, and are +sorry for the men who aren't here, for it's a +wonderful thing to have been chosen to sacrifice +and perhaps to die that the world of the future +may be happier and kinder.</p> + +<p>This letter is rather disjointed; I'm in charge +of the battery for the time, and messages keep +on coming in, and one has to rush out to give +the order to fire.</p> + +<p>It's an American night—snow-white and piercing, +with a frigid moon sailing quietly. I think +the quiet beauty of the sky is about the only +thing in Nature that we do not scar and destroy +with our fighting.</p> + +<p>Good-bye, and thank you ever so much.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Yours very sincerely,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">CONINGSBY DAWSON.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLIV" id="XLIV" />XLIV</h2> + +<p>February 1st, 1917.</p> + +<p>11 p.m.</p> + +<p>DEAR FATHER:</p> + +<p>Your picture of the black days when no +letter comes from me sets me off scribbling to +you at this late hour. All to-day I've been having +a cold but amusing time at the O.P. (Forward +Observation Post). It seems brutal to say +it, but taking potshots at the enemy when they +present themselves is rather fun. When you +watch them scattering like ants before the shell +whose direction you have ordered, you somehow +forget to think of them as individuals, any more +than the bear-hunter thinks of the cubs that will +be left motherless. You watch your victims +through your glasses as God might watch his +mad universe. Your skill in directing fire makes +you what in peace times would be called a murderer. +Curious! You're glad, and yet at close +quarters only in hot blood would you hurt a man.</p> + +<p>I'd been back for a little over an hour when +I had to go forward again to guide in some guns. +The country was dazzlingly white in the moonlight. +As far as eye could see every yard was +an old battlefield; beneath the soft white fleece +of snow lay countless unburied bodies. Like +frantic fingers tearing at the sky, all along the +horizon, Hun lights were shooting up and drifting +across our front. Tap-tap-tappity went the machine-guns; +whoo-oo went the heavies, and they +always stamp like angry bulls. I had to come +back by myself across the heroic corruption which +the snow had covered. All the way I asked myself +why was I not frightened. What has happened +to me? Ghosts should walk here if anywhere. +Moreover, I know that I shall be frightened +again when the war is ended. Do you remember +how you once offered me money to walk +through the Forest of Dean after dark, and I +wouldn't? I wouldn't if you offered it to me +now. You remember Meredith's lines in "The +Woods of Westermain":</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"All the eyeballs under hoods</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Shroud you in their glare;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Enter these enchanted woods</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">You who dare."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Maybe what re-creates one for the moment is the +British officer's uniform, and even more the fact +that you are not asked, but expected, to do your +duty. So I came back quite unruffled across battered +trenches and silent mounds to write this +letter to you.</p> + +<p>My dear father, I'm over thirty, and yet just +as much a little boy as ever. I still feel overwhelmingly +dependent on your good opinion and +love. I'm glad that they are black days when +you have no letters from me. I love to think +of the rush to the door when the postman rings +and the excited shouting up the stairs, "Quick, +one from Con."</p> + +<p>February 2nd.</p> + +<p>You see by the writing how tired I was when +I reached this point. It's nearly twenty-four +hours later and again night. The gramophone is +playing an air from <i>La Tosca</i> to which the guns +beat out a bass accompaniment. I close my eyes +and picture the many times I have heard the +(probably) German orchestras of Broadway Joy +Palaces play that same music. How incongruous +that I should be listening to it here and under +these circumstances! It must have been +listened to so often by gay crowds in the beauty +places of the world. A romantic picture grows +up in my mind of a blue night, the laughter of +youth in evening dress, lamps twinkling through +trees, far off the velvety shadow of water and +mountains, and as a voice to it all, that air from +<i>La Tosca</i>. I can believe that the silent people +near by raise themselves up in their snow-beds +to listen, each one recalling some ecstatic moment +before the dream of life was shattered.</p> + +<p>There's a picture in the Pantheon at Paris, I +remember; I believe it's called <i>To Glory</i>. One +sees all the armies of the ages charging out of +the middle distance with Death riding at their +head. The only glory that I have discovered in +this war is in men's hearts—it's not external. +Were one to paint the spirit of this war he would +depict a mud landscape, blasted trees, an iron sky; +wading through the slush and shell-holes would +come a file of bowed figures, more like outcasts +from the Embankment than soldiers. They're +loaded down like pack animals, their shoulders +are rounded, they're wearied to death, but they +go on and go on. There's no "To Glory" about +what we're doing out here; there's no flash of +swords or splendour of uniforms. There are +only very tired men determined to carry on. The +war will be won by tired men who could never +again pass an insurance test, a mob of broken +counter-jumpers, ragged ex-plumbers and quite +unheroic persons. We're civilians in khaki, but +because of the ideals for which we fight we've +managed to acquire soldiers' hearts.</p> + +<p>My flow of thought was interrupted by a burst +of song in which I was compelled to join. We're +all writing letters around one candle; suddenly +the O.C. looked up and began, God Be With +You Till We Meet Again. We sang it in parts. +It was in Southport, when I was about nine years +old, that I first heard that sung. You had gone +for your first trip to America, leaving a very +lonely family behind you. We children were +scared to death that you'd be drowned. One evening, +coming back from a walk on the sand-hills, +we heard voices singing in a garden, God Be +With You Till We Meet Again. The words and +the soft dusk, and the vague figures in the English +summer garden, seemed to typify the terror of +all partings. We've said good-bye so often since, +and God has been with us. I don't think any +parting was more hard than our last at the prosaic +dock-gates with the cold wind of duty blowing, +and the sentry barring your entrance, and +your path leading back to America while mine +led on to France. But you three were regular +soldiers—just as much soldiers as we chaps who +were embarking. One talks of our armies in +the field, but there are the other armies, millions +strong, of mothers and fathers and sisters, +who keep their eyes dry, treasure muddy letters +beneath their pillows, offer up prayers and wait, +wait, wait so eternally for God to open another +door.</p> + +<p>To-morrow I again go forward, which means +rising early and taking a long plod through the +snows; that's one reason for not writing any +more, and another is that our one poor candle +is literally on its last legs.</p> + +<p>Your poem, written years ago when the poor +were marching in London, is often in my mind:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Yesterday and to-day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Have been heavy with labour and sorrow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I should faint if I did not see</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">The day that is after to-morrow."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And there's that last verse which prophesied utterly +the spirit in which we men at the Front are +fighting to-day:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"And for me, with spirit elate</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">The mire and the fog I press thorough,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">For Heaven shines under the cloud</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Of the day that is after to-morrow."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>We civilians who have been taught so long to +love our enemies and do good to them who hate +us—much too long ever to make professional +soldiers—are watching with our hearts in our +eyes for that day which conies after to-morrow. +Meanwhile we plod on determinedly, hoping for +the hidden glory.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Yours very lovingly,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 19.5em;">Con.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLV" id="XLV" />XLV</h2> + + +<p>February 3rd, 1917.</p> + +<p>Dear Misses W.:</p> + +<p>You were very kind to remember me at +Christmas. <i>Seventeen</i> was read with all kinds +of gusto by all my brother officers. It's still being +borrowed.</p> + +<p>I've been back from leave a few days now and +am settling back to business again. It was a +trifle hard after over-eating and undersleeping +myself for nine days, and riding everywhere with +my feet up in taxis. I was the wildest little boy. +Here it's snowy and bitter. We wear scarves +round our ears to keep the frost away and dream +of fires a mile high. All I ask, when the war is +ended, is to be allowed to sit asleep in a big armchair +and to be left there absolutely quiet. Sleep, +which we crave so much at times, is only death +done up in sample bottles. Perhaps some of +these very weary men who strew our battlefields +are glad to lie at last at endless leisure.</p> + +<p>Good-bye, and thank you.</p> + +<p>Yours very sincerely,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLVI" id="XLVI" />XLVI</h2> + +<p>February 4th, 1917.</p> + +<p>My Dearest Mother:</p> + +<p>Somewhere in the distance I can hear a +piano going and men's voices singing A Perfect +Day. It's queer how music creates a world +for you in which you are not, and makes you +dreamy. I've been sitting by a fire and thinking +of all the happy times when the total of desire +seemed almost within one's grasp. It never +is—one always, always misses it and has to rub +the dust from the eyes, recover one's breath and +set out on the search afresh. I suppose when +you grow very old you learn the lesson of sitting +quiet, and the heart stops beating and the total +of desire comes to you. And yet I can remember +so many happy days, when I was a child in +the summer and later at Kootenay. One almost +thought he had caught the secret of carrying +heaven in his heart.</p> + +<p>By the time this reaches you I'll be in the line +again, but for the present I'm undergoing a special +course of training. You can't hear the most +distant sound of guns, and if it wasn't for the +pressure of study, similar to that at <i>Kingston</i>, +one would be very rested.</p> + +<p>Sunday of all days is the one when I remember +you most. You're just sitting down to mid-day +dinner,—I've made the calculation for difference +of time. You're probably saying how +less than a month ago we were in London. That +doesn't sound true even when I write it. I wonder +how your old familiar surroundings strike +you. It's terrible to come down from the mountain +heights of a great elation like our ten days +in London. I often think of that with regard to +myself when the war is ended. There'll be a +sense of dissatisfaction when the old lost comforts +are regained. There'll be a sense of lowered +manhood. The stupendous terrors of Armageddon +demand less courage than the uneventful +terror of the daily commonplace. There's +something splendid and exhilarating in going forward +among bursting shells—we, who have done +all that, know that when the guns have ceased to +roar our blood will grow more sluggish and we'll +never be such men again. Instead of getting up +in the morning and hearing your O.C. say, +"You'll run a line into trench so-and-so to-day +and shoot up such-and-such Hun wire," you'll +hear necessity saying, "You'll work from breakfast +to dinner and earn your daily bread. And +you'll do it to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow +world without end. Amen." They +never put that forever and forever part into their +commands out here, because the Amen for any +one of us may be only a few hours away. But +the big immediate thing is so much easier to do +than the prosaic carrying on without anxiety—which +is your game. I begin to understand what +you have had to suffer now that R. and E. +are really at war too. I get awfully anxious +about them. I never knew before that either of +them owned so much of my heart. I get furious +when I remember that they might get hurt. +I've heard of a Canadian who joined when he +learnt that his best friend had been murdered +by Hun bayonets. He came to get his own back +and was the most reckless man in his battalion. +I can understand his temper now. We're all of +us in danger of slipping back into the worship +of Thor.</p> + +<p>I'll write as often as I can while here, but I +don't get much time—so you'll understand. It's +the long nights when one sits up to take the firing +in action that give one the chance to be a decent +correspondent.</p> + +<p>My birthday comes round soon, doesn't it? +Good heavens, how ancient I'm getting and without +any "grow old along with me" consolation. +Well, to grow old is all in the job of living.</p> + +<p>Good-bye, and God bless you all.</p> + +<p>Yours ever,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLVII" id="XLVII" />XLVII</h2> + + +<p>February 4th, 1917.</p> + +<p>Dear Mr. B.:</p> + +<p>I have been intending to write to you for +a very long time, but as most of one's writing +is done when one ought to be asleep, and sleep +next to eating is one of our few remaining pleasures, +my intended letter has remained in my head +up to now. On returning from a nine days' +leave to London the other day, however, I found +two letters from you awaiting me and was reproached +into effort.</p> + +<p>War's a queer game—not at all what one's +civilian mind imagined; it's far more horrible and +less exciting. The horrors which the civilian +mind dreads most are mutilation and death. Out +here we rarely think about them; the thing which +wears on one most and calls out his gravest courage +is the endless sequence of physical discomfort. +Not to be able to wash, not to be able to +sleep, to have to be wet and cold for long periods +at a stretch, to find mud on your person, in your +food, to have to stand in mud, see mud, sleep in +mud and to continue to smile—that's what tests +courage. Our chaps are splendid. They're not +the hair-brained idiots that some war-correspondents +depict from day to day. They're perfectly +sane people who know to a fraction what they're +up against, but who carry on with a grim good-nature +and a determination to win with a smile. +I never before appreciated as I do to-day the +latent capacity for big-hearted endurance that is +in the heart of every man. Here are apparently +quite ordinary chaps—chaps who washed, liked +theatres, loved kiddies and sweethearts, had a +zest for life—they're bankrupt of all pleasures +except the supreme pleasure of knowing that +they're doing the ordinary and finest thing of +which they are capable. There are millions to +whom the mere consciousness of doing their duty +has brought an heretofore unexperienced peace +of mind. For myself I was never happier than +I am at present; there's a novel zip added to life +by the daily risks and the knowledge that at last +you're doing something into which no trace of +selfishness enters. One can only die once; the +chief concern that matters is <i>how</i> and not <i>when</i> +you die. I don't pity the weary men who have +attained eternal leisure in the corruption of our +shell-furrowed battles; they "went West" in their +supreme moment. The men I pity are those who +could not hear the call of duty and whose consciences +will grow more flabby every day. With +the brutal roar of the first Prussian gun the +cry came to the civilised world, "Follow thou +me," just as truly as it did in Palestine. Men went +to their Calvary singing Tipperary, rubbish, +rhymed doggerel, but their spirit was equal to +that of any Christian martyr in a Roman amphitheatre. +"Greater love hath no man than this, +that he lay down his life for his friend." Our +chaps are doing that consciously, willingly, almost +without bitterness towards their enemies; +for the rest it doesn't matter whether they sing +hymns or ragtime. They've followed their +ideal—freedom—and died for it. A former age +expressed itself in Gregorian chants; ours, no less +sincerely, disguises its feelings in ragtime.</p> + +<p>Since September I have been less than a month +out of action. The game doesn't pall as time +goes on—it fascinates. We've got to win so that +men may never again be tortured by the ingenious +inquisition of modern warfare. The winning of +the war becomes a personal affair to the chaps +who are fighting. The world which sits behind +the lines, buys extra specials of the daily papers +and eats three square meals a day, will never +know what this other world has endured for its +safety, for no man of this other world will have +the vocabulary in which to tell. But don't for +a moment mistake me—we're grimly happy.</p> + +<p>What a serial I'll write for you if I emerge +from this turmoil! Thank God, my outlook is +all altered. I don't want to live any longer—only +to live well.</p> + +<p>Good-bye and good luck.</p> + +<p>Yours,</p> + +<p>Coningsby Dawson.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLVIII" id="XLVIII" />XLVIII</h2> + + +<p>February 5th, 1917.</p> + +<p>My Dearest Mother:</p> + +<p>Aren't the papers good reading now-a-days +with nothing to record but success? It +gives us hope that at last, anyway before the year +is out, the war must end. As you know, I am at +the artillery school back of the lines for a month, +taking an extra course. I have been meeting a +great many young officers from all over the world +and have listened to them discussing their program +for when peace is declared. Very few of +them have any plans or prospects. Most of them +had just started on some course of professional +training to which they won't have the energy to +go back after a two years' interruption. The +question one asks is how will all these men be reabsorbed +into civilian life. I'm afraid the result +will be a vast host of men with promising pasts +and highly uncertain futures. We shall be a holiday +world without an income. I'm afraid the +hero-worship attitude will soon change to impatience +when the soldiers beat their swords into +ploughshares and then confess that they have +never been taught to plough. That's where I +shall score—by beating my sword into a pen. +But what to write about—! Everything will +seem so little and inconsequential after seeing +armies marching to mud and death, and people +will soon get tired of hearing about that. It +seems as though war does to the individual what +it does to the landscapes it attacks—obliterates +everything personal and characteristic. A valley, +when a battle has done with it, is nothing but +earth—exactly what it was when God said, "Let +there be Light;" a man just something with a +mind purged of the past and ready to observe +afresh. I question whether a return to old +environments will ever restore to us the whole of +our old tastes and affections. War is, I think, +utterly destructive. It doesn't even create courage—it +only finds it in the soul of a man. And +yet there is one quality which will survive the +war and help us to face the temptations of peace—that +same courage which most of us have unconsciously +discovered out here.</p> + +<p>Well, my dear, I have little news—at least, +none that I can tell. I'm just about recovered +from an attack of "flu." I want to get thoroughly +rid of it before I go back to my battery. I hope +you all keep well. God bless you all.</p> + +<p>Yours ever,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLIX" id="XLIX" />XLIX</h2> + +<p>February 6th, 1917.</p> + +<p>My Very Dear M.:</p> + +<p>I read in to-day's paper that U.S.A. +threatens to come over and help us. I wish +she would. The very thought of the possibility +fills me with joy. I've been light-headed all day. +It would be so ripping to live among people, +when the war is ended, of whom you need not +be ashamed. Somewhere deep down in my heart +I've felt a sadness ever since I've been out here, +at America's lack of gallantry—it's so easy to +find excuses for not climbing to Calvary; sacrifice +was always too noble to be sensible. I +would like to see the country of our adoption become +splendidly irrational even at this eleventh +hour in the game; it would redeem her in the +world's eyes. She doesn't know what she's +losing. From these carcase-strewn fields of +khaki there's a cleansing wind blowing for the +nations that have died. Though there was only +one Englishman left to carry on the race when +this war is victoriously ended, I would give more +for the future of England than for the future of +America with her ninety millions whose sluggish +blood was not stirred by the call of duty. It's +bigness of soul that makes nations great and not +population. Money, comfort, limousines and +ragtime are not the requisites of men when +heroes are dying. I hate the thought of Fifth +Avenue, with its pretty faces, its fashions, its +smiling frivolity. America as a great nation will +die, as all coward civilisations have died, unless +she accepts the stigmata of sacrifice, which a +divine opportunity again offers her.</p> + +<p>If it were but possible to show those ninety +millions one battlefield with its sprawling dead, +its pity, its marvellous forgetfulness of self, I +think then—no, they wouldn't be afraid. Fear +isn't the emotion one feels—they would +experience the shame of living when so many have +shed their youth freely. This war is a prolonged +moment of exultation for most of us—we +are redeeming ourselves in our own eyes. +To lay down one's life for one's friend once +seemed impossible. All that is altered. We lay +down our lives that the future generations may +be good and kind, and so we can contemplate +oblivion with quiet eyes. Nothing that is noblest +that the Greeks taught is unpractised by the +simplest men out here to-day. They may die +childless, but their example will father the imagination +of all the coming ages. These men, in +the noble indignation of a great ideal, face a +worse hell than the most ingenious of fanatics +ever planned or plotted. Men die scorched like +moths in a furnace, blown to atoms, gassed, tortured. +And again other men step forward to +take their places well knowing what will be their +fate. Bodies may die, but the spirit of England +grows greater as each new soul speeds upon its +way. The battened souls of America will die and +be buried. I believe the decision of the next +few days will prove to be the crisis in America's +nationhood. If she refuses the pain which will +save her, the cancer of self-despising will rob her +of her life.</p> + +<p>This feeling is strong with us. It's past midnight, +but I could write of nothing else to-night.</p> + +<p>God bless you.</p> + +<p>Yours ever,</p> + +<p>Con.</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14086 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/14086-h/images/001.jpg b/14086-h/images/001.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e702074 --- /dev/null +++ b/14086-h/images/001.jpg diff --git a/14086-h/images/003.jpg b/14086-h/images/003.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2825b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/14086-h/images/003.jpg |
