LIVING BAYONETS
A Record of The Last Push
By Coningsby Dawson
London: John Lane, The Bodley Head New York:
1919
“Our spirits are living bayonets. The ideals which we carry in our hearts are
more deadly to the enemy than any man-made weapons.”
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
LIVING BAYONETS
GERMANY PLEADS FOR PEACE
FOREWORD
THESE selections from collected letters of Coningsby Dawson have been edited
by his sister, Muriel Dawson, and are published in response to hundreds of
requests. Readers of his first volume of correspondence from the Front, issued
under the title of “Khaki Courage,” have written from all over the country
asking that a further series be given them. The generous appreciation and
personal interest expressed by these readers have induced Lieutenant Coningsby
Dawson’s family to publish these letters. They take up his story at the point
where “Khaki Courage” laid it down, at the time when America entered the war.
LIVING BAYONETS
A RECORD OF THE LAST PUSH
I
France April 14, 1917
THE other night at twelve your letters came to me just as I was climbing into
my bunk, so recently tenanted by a Hun. I immediately lit another candle,
stuck it on the wall in a manner peculiar to myself, and started on a feast of
genuine home gossip.
What a difference it must make to you to know that the United States are at
last confessedly our Ally. Their financial and industrial support will be
invaluable to us and will make a difference at once. And the moral advantage
of having them on our side is the greatest wound to the spirit of Germany that
she has received since the war started. It will be real fun to be able to come
back to New York in khaki, won’t it?—instead of slinking in as a civilian.
Besides, if I get wounded, I’ll be able to come home to visit you on leave
now.
This big decision has made me almost gay ever since it happened. I have such a
new affection for everything across the Atlantic—almost as if New York and the
Hudson were just across the lawn from England, the nearest of near neighbours.
I wish with all my heart that I could drop in on you for a day and just sit
down on the sunny verandah and talk and talk. There’s so much I want to hear
and so much I want to understand in the changed attitude of America. I’m sure
everyone must be much more happy now that the cloud of reproach has lifted and
the brightness of heroism is in the air. It shines in my imagination like the
clear blueness above the white towers of New York. There’s one thing certain;
now that the President has made up his mind, the country will go as
baldheadedly for war as it has for everything else it ever set out to attain.
The real momentousness of this happening hasn’t been appreciated by the
fighting men out here yet. With a sublime arrogance they feel themselves quite
capable of licking Germany without the assistance of anyone.
II
France April 17, 1917
Last night I was out on a working party—a moonlight night with sleet falling,
and did not get back till past two. The first thing my flash-light fell on as
I entered my dug-out was a pile of letters from home. At past 3 a.m. I was
still reading them, when H. and B. woke up and asked if there was anything for
them. There was. So there we were all lying in our bunks and reading our
love-letters till nearly 4 a.m.
Yesterday I had a very exciting time. I was doing some reconnoitring along the
front when a bullet whizzed by and almost scorched the ear of my sergeant. We
hopped into a trench about two feet full of water. But whenever we showed
ourselves the sniping started up again. At last we got tired of wading, so
climbed out and made a dash across the open. None of us was caught, but by
pure bad luck another sergeant of mine, who was waiting quite 300 yards away,
got it in the back. He was a big, heavy chap, and we had quite a slippery time
carrying him out on a stretcher to the dressing-station. That’s the second
N.C.O. who’s been hit with me in the last ten days. The other chap got it in
his side.
Either of these wounds would have been nice to get for anyone who wanted a
rest. But I don’t want to get out yet; all the really sporting part of this
war will be this summer. We are praying that we may come into action at the
gallop, “Halt, action front!” bang off our rounds and follow up again.
For some reason, to-day my memory has been full of pictures of that wonderful
leave we had together in London. Things have come back that I’d
forgotten—visits to theatres, to restaurants, rides in taxis, so many
things—all the time there’s that extraordinary atmosphere of intense love. I
suppose I must have spent the night dreaming of you. Living in the daylight
hours in this deep dug-out makes spring seem like winter; I expect that helps
me to remember. How I wish I could have those ten days again. Perhaps our next
will be in New York, when I come back in khaki for an odd week. The thought of
such a happening in the future and the recollection of the meeting that is
past are like coming to a fire out of a dark, cold night. This war is so
monstrously impersonal; the attachments one forms with those among whom he
lives are so few, that the passionately personal affections of the old days
shine out like beacon fires. It will be wonderful when the war ends and one
can sit still in a great hush.
Yesterday I had a day off for a bath behind the lines—I hadn’t tubbed for well
over a month and hadn’t been back of the guns; also I had slept in my
clothes—so you may judge that warm water and soap were a necessity. Afterwards
I had great fun shopping for the mess, but I didn’t manage to buy much, as the
country is all eaten up. All that is beautiful in the way of landscape lies
ahead, so we’re very anxious to capture it from the Hun. One looks out over
his back country, so green and beautiful and untouched, and feels like an Old
Testament spy having a peep at the Promised Land. Without doubt it will be
ours in the ordained time. When I went out this morning it was to see a blue,
blue sky, a battery pulling into action and behind it a desolated town. But
the feature that caught my attention was the spring sky. I stared and stared
at it and thought of when the war is ended. To-day I had to go to another town
which is in process of being battered. On my way back I passed through a
wood—most of the trees were levelled to the ground. In the wood I found a hawk
wounded by shrapnel, and pressing close behind a fallen trunk. And I found my
first spring flower—a daffodil—which I am enclosing to you. I’ve sent you many
flowers, but none which carries with it more love than this little withered
daffodil—my first token of spring—gathered from a fought-over woodland of
France.
Since writing thus far it has been raining cats and dogs, and I’ve been
catching the mud, which leaks through my roof, in a soup-plate. Little things
like mud and rain don’t damp our ardour, however; we press on and on to
certain victory.
One of our officers came back from leave to-day—he’d spent his freedom in
Devon, and was full of the beauty of the spring-time there. Happy Devon! War
has changed the seasons in France. Winter started in October; it’s the middle
of April and winter has not yet ended. Oh, to wake up again with the splendid
assurance of a summer day with nothing but beauty—such a peaceful day as we
have so often spent at Kootenay. That wounded hawk, crouching among the
daffodils, is a symbol—we’re like that: beasts of prey for our country’s sake,
maimed in mind and spirit, and waiting till our wings grow strong again. And
yet—who would be anywhere else but here so long as the war lasts? Oh, the fine
clean courage of the men in the face of danger and their brave endurance in
the presence of privation! It passes understanding. I saw a chap with a mortal
wound the other day thinking nothing of himself—only of his pal, who was but
slightly wounded. The most unendurable people act like heroes in the face of
death. There’s a fundamental nobility in all men which comes to the surface
when life is most despairing.
III
France April 19, 1917
I sit in a hole in a recent battlefield. Over my head is some tattered canvas,
upheld by Fritzie shovels. In a battered bucket wood splutters, and the rain
it raineth every day. To make my appearance more gipsy-like I may add that my
hands are cracked with the mud. When the war is ended I shall lie in bed for a
month.
We’ve come through some very lively times of late, and I shall have plenty of
local colour to impart to you when the war is ended. My mind is packed with
vivid pictures which I cannot tell. This huge silence which rests between
individuals is the most terrific thing about the war. You get the terror made
concrete for you when you creep to your Observation Post and spy upon the Hun
country. In the foreground is a long stretch of barbed wire, shell-holes and
mud. Behind that a ruined town; then gradually, greenness growing more vivid
as it recedes to the horizon. Nothing stirs. You may look through your
telescope all day, but nothing stirs.
Yet you know that in every hole the hidden death lurks; should you for a
moment forget and raise your head unwarily, you are reminded of your folly by
the crack of a rifle. I’ve always made the mistake of believing the best of
everyone—and, as a soldier, I’ve never been able to credit the fact that
anyone of a big nation would count himself happy to get my scalp. The actual
passes belief. I recall so vividly that story of the final war, written by a
German, The Human Slaughter-house. The chap never realizes the awfulness of
his job until for the first time he comes face to face with the young boy he’s
called upon to kill. We kill by hundreds from a distance, but the destroyed
and the destroyers rarely have a hint of each other’s identity. I came to a
dug-out the other day in a battered trench. Even the water in the shell-holes
was dyed by explosives to the colour of blood. Outside lay a German, face
downwards in the mud—an old man with grizzled hair. I shoved my revolver round
the mouth of the dug-out and called to anyone who was there to come out. A
Cockney voice answered; then followed a scrambling; two huge feet came up
through the dark; they belonged to a dead German; two of his comrades grinned
cheerfully at me from behind the corpse and propelled it none too reverently
into the mud. Behind the party I discovered my Cockney-adventurer—a
machine-gunner who, having lost his company, made amends by capturing three
Fritzes and killing two others with the aid of a pal with a shattered leg. I
told him to bring his pal up. Under his directions the Fritzes trotted back
into the hole and brought out the wounded fellow. They were extraordinarily
meek-looking and quite surprisingly gentle; when I’d told them where the
dressing-station was, they made a bandy-chair of their hands, placed our
fellow’s arms about their necks and staggered away through the barrage—or
curtain of fire, as the papers like to call it—back to safety with their
wounded enemy. And yet within the hour all these people had been chucking
bombs at one another.
A few days ago I was detailed for a novel experience—to follow up the infantry
attack across No Man’s Land to the Hun Front line and as far as his support
trenches. I called for volunteers to accompany me and had a splendid lot of
chaps. My party got away with the adventure without a scratch—which was
extraordinarily lucky. Moreover, we accomplished the particular job that we
were called upon to do.
To-night I’m out from dusk to daylight poking through the darkness in a
country where one dare not use a flash-light. Between two ruined towns I have
to pass a battered Calvary.
The Christ upon His Cross is still untouched, though the shrine and
surrounding trees are smashed to atoms. I think He means more to me like
that—stripped of His gorgeousness—than ever. He seems so like ourselves in His
lonely and unhallowed suffering. The road which leads to and from Him is
symbolic—shell-torn, scattered with dead horses and men, while ahead the snarl
of shrapnel darts across the sky and spends itself in little fleecy puffs. All
this desolation will be re-created one day, the country will grow green and,
in another country, greener than any upon earth, those dead men will walk and
laugh—and in that other country the Christ will no longer hang alone and
aloofly. I like to think of that—of the beauty in the future, if not in this,
then in some other world. One grows tired, just like that image on the Cross.
How little the body counts! War teaches us that.
IV
France April 22, 1917
I had a letter from each one of you the day before last, and they reached me
within three weeks of being written—it made you all seem very near.
I am writing this to you from a mercifully deep dug-out, which was the home of
Huns considerably less than a fortnight ago. I’m sure it was very obliging of
them to think ahead and provide us with such safe hiding-places from their
villainous shells. They have knocked the house down overhead. In the yard is a
broken bird-cage—the owner must have set the captive free before he made good
his own escape. Hanging at the head of my bunk is an iron crucifix and on the
wall is a beautiful woman’s portrait. One hardly thinks of his enemy as being
human these days—he seems only an impersonal devastating force; but it was a
man with affections who lately tenanted my dug-out.
In a recent attack I saw a curious happening. I was up with the infantry as
liaison officer when one of our planes was shot down. The pilot made an effort
to land behind our trenches, but his machine was unmanageable and he came down
in Boche territory—or what had been Boche territory a quarter of an hour
before. Through my glasses I saw the pilot and observer get out and start to
creep cautiously back. We ourselves didn’t know for certain where the Huns
were—all we knew was that they were supposed to be withdrawing. When the
airmen arrived at our battalion headquarters they were still scarcely
convinced that our chaps were not Huns in khaki. When we gave them a meal of
bully-beef they knew that wc were British. So very much I could tell you which
is thrilling and heroic if only I were allowed.
Do you know, sometimes I marvel at my contented loneliness? It isn’t like me.
I ought to be homesick and—but I’m not. I’m too much consumed with the frenzy
of an ideal to care for anything but to see the principle for which we fight
established. What one man can do isn’t much—only a Jesus can save the world
singlehanded; the real satisfaction is in one’s own soul, that softness and
success had not made him deaf to the voice of duty when she called to him. For
me this undertaking is as holy as a crusade; if it were not I could not endure
the sights. As it is I keep quiet in my soul, feeling humbly glad that I am
allowed to fulfil the dreams of my boyhood. I always wanted to do something to
save the world, you remember. First I was going to be a missionary; then a
reformer; then a preacher; then a poet. Instead of any of these I “struck
luck” as a novelist—and I can see now how success was corroding to one’s
ideals. Success in America is so inevitably measured in terms of praise and
money. I wanted to save the world; never in my wildest dreams did it occur to
me that I should get my chance as a soldier. I remember when I was studying
history at Oxford how I used to shudder at the descriptions of battles,
especially mediaeval battles waged by mailed Titans. I don’t know what change
has taken place in me; this is a more damnable war in its possibilities for
suffering than any of a bygone age; in comparison, those old wars seem
chivalrous and humane. And yet because of the spiritual goal for which we
fight I no longer shudder. Yes, that is the reason for the change. A man
doesn’t often get the chance in these commercial times to risk all that he
holds most dear for humanity’s sake. I think of the morning family prayers of
childhood in the old panelled room in Highbury and the petitions you used to
make for us—everything has shaped towards this great moment in our lives; the
past was a straight road leading to this crisis. I don’t forget the share you
three contribute—the share of your brave loneliness and waiting. Your share is
the greatest. God bless you.
Our major was twice wounded in the recent offensives and has now left us for a
higher position. I was terribly sorry to lose him.
V
France April 30,1917
The mud has gone. Spring is here and the sun shines all the time. Oh, a most
enjoyable war, I do assure you. When I wakened this morning I wandered up the
thirty stairs from my dug-out into the former garden, which is now a scene of
the utmost desolation. A row was going on as though the Celestial housemaid
had lost her temper and given notice, and was tumbling all the plates from the
pantry through the clouds. Above the clatter I heard a sound which was almost
alarming: the clear, brave note of a thrush, piping, piping, piping. He didn’t
seem to care a rap how often the guns blew their noses or how often the Hun
shrapnel clashed like cymbals overhead; he had his song to sing in the
sunshine, and was determined to sing it, no matter that the song might go
unheard. So there I stood and listened to him among the ruins, as one might
listen to a faithful priest in a fallen church. I re-created in imagination
the people who had lived here for generations, their tragedies, kindnesses,
love-affairs. It must have been a beautiful place once, for everywhere there
are stumps of fruit-trees, hedges of box trodden almost underground, circular
patches which were flower-beds. I can picture the exiles’ joy when they hear
that their village has been recaptured. Presently they’ll come back, these old
women and men—for their sons are fighting—and they’ll look in vain for even
the landmarks of the little house which once sheltered their affections. The
thrush in the tree is all that the Huns have left of past history. We British
lose our men in the fight, but the sacrifice of the French is immeasurable,
for when their sons are dead they have no quiet place of recollections. They
can’t say, “Do you remember how he walked here two years back?” or “These
hollyhocks he planted,” or “How he waved us goodbye as we watched him from the
gate!” The same cyclone of passion which has taken their sons’ fives, has
robbed them of everything tangible which would remind them of him.
As regards the U.S.A. joining with us, I have spoken with several Huns. They
one and all seem very dejected about it, and seem to consider the loss of
America’s friendship one of the greatest blows of the war.
VI
France May 10, 1917
It’s just back at the guns from a two days’ rest at the wagon-fines. It’s the
first time I’ve been back since March. I rose early on a blazing morning and
started down to the point where I was to meet my horses. I say “rose early,”
but as a matter of fact I had only had four hours’ sleep in forty-eight, and
hadn’t had my clothes off for nearly three weeks. As I drew away, the low
thunder that we make grew less and less, the indescribable smell of bursting
explosives fainter; soon I realized that a lark was singing overhead; then
another—then another. Brave little birds to come so near to danger to sing for
us. At the edge of a wood I found my chestnut mare, Kitty, and my groom—the
chap who used to work at the Silver King mine, which overlooks our ranch at
Kootenay. That we should share that memory always forms a bond of kindness
between us. We didn’t stop long at the wagon-line, but soon started out to get
farther back for lunch. I had it in the shack of an officer who was with me at
Petewawa. Then off I went at a gallop for green trees and clean country. I
hadn’t gone far before I came to a God’s Acre full of crowded little white
crosses and newly turned earth. Our captain was with me, and he learnt that an
old friend from one of our batteries was on the way down with a Union Jack
spread over him. We went into the brown field where the men who have “gone
west” lie so closely and snugly side by side, and came to a place where six
shallow holes were dug like clay coffins. Presently, winding through the
forest of crosses, the hard blue sky overhead, we saw the little band
advancing, the stretcher carried high on the shoulders of four officers. The
burden was set down and the flag lifted, showing the mummy-like form sewn up
in the blanket in which the living man had slept. The chaplain began
tremulously, “I am the Resurrection and the life; he who believeth in Me,”
etc., and while he recited I watched the faces of the gunners drawn up at
attention in the strong sunlight. To them, whatever else the ceremony meant,
it at least meant this—a day away from the guns. Suddenly I discovered that
the Lord’s Prayer was being said. Then heads were again covered and the word
of command was given. “Right turn. Quick march.” The stretcher was gathered up
and the little crowd dispersed. I suppose there is a woman somewhere who would
have given ten’ years of life to have stood in my shoes beside that narrow
grave. For myself I thought, “Well, the chap’s got what we long for most out
here—rest. He won’t have to stand in the mud any more, when his feet are like
stones and eyes like lead, watching and watching the rockets go up along the
front. And he won’t have to guide his guns in at night, or wonder what life
will do to him when the war is ended. He longed for sleep and now he sleeps
endlessly.” It didn’t impress me as at all sad. He’d played his part like a
man and was at last rewarded. But we—we were alive, and we hadn’t had a bath
for a month—so we jumped on our horses and trotted off to the nearest shower.
It was five in the afternoon when we again took to the highway. We wanted to
sponge out our minds by looking at something beautiful, just as we had sponged
down our bodies. We, I should explain, were myself and the captain of my
battery. Soon we found ourselves among fields from which all the wrinkles of
trenches and pit-marks of shell-holes had been smoothed out. There was a river
winding between tall trees unblasted by the curtain of fire. Peasants were at
work on their little patches—women and either very old men or boys. We came to
a town as quiet and unspoiled as those we used to visit in pre-war days. In a
courtyard we tethered our horses and then sat down to one of those
incomparable French meals. It was splendid after canned stuff, and you
couldn’t hear the boom of a single gun. The peace of the place got hold of
us—we didn’t want to go back too hurriedly, and kept postponing and
postponing. A blue and gold haze with a touch of silver shining through it was
blurring all the sky, when we remounted. We travelled slowly, singing—thinking
up the twilight songs of other times. My thoughts went back to Scotch holidays
at Arran and Loch Katrine—the daringly late evenings of childhood. Reluctantly
we came back and saw the frantic city of Very lights grow up, which indicate
the Hun front. The air began to be shaken again by the prolonged agony of
rushing shells and stamping guns. It was only after midnight, when we had
reached our hut, that I remembered the need of sleep. But when I struck a
match on entering, I found letters from each one of you awaiting—so lay late
in bed reading them by candlelight for another hour. One snatches at small
pleasures and magnifies them into intensity.
Your letters told me about Khaki Courage, and seeing “Colonel Newcome,” and
about the Highlanders in New York. What a very much more homely place America
must be to you now. I must say I am keen to see the book. It’s not mine at
all—it’s you dear home people’s—you called it out and you put it together.
Here I sit in the underground place which I have to call “home” at present.
You go through all kinds of contortions to enter. Stephen Leacock could be
very funny at my expense.
VII
France June 2, 1917
It is 11 a.m., and I’m sitting at the bottom of a dug-out waiting for the Hun
to finish his morning hate before I go upstairs. He seems very angry, and has
just caved in one of our walls.
Mother seemed most awfully sorry for me in her last letter. But you know I’m
really having rather a good time, despite having a minimum amount of washing
and having our mess kitchen blown in every few days. The only time that one
gets melancholy is when nothing is doing. An attack or the preparations for an
attack are real fun. Everybody is on his toes, and there’s no time to think.
It’s four hours later. Just as I had reached this point news came that some of
our chaps were buried, so I had a little brisk spade-work, then a wriggling
voyage through a hole, and then a lot of messy work pouring iodine into wounds
and binding up. I’m afraid my hands are still rather like a murderer’s.
Incidentally our kitchen is entirely done for this time. We’ve got the wounded
fellows on their way to Blighty, and are fairly confident that they’re not
going west this time.
I am so glad that the coming of America into the game has made so much
difference to you. I wish I could come back for a fortnight and share the
excitement with you. It’s difficult to picture New York as a military pageant
in khaki. Tell me all about the young fellows I know and what they are doing.
I wonder how many are in the Field Artillery—which is about the most
interesting part of the game.
You remember that Calvary I told you about. I saw it under another guise after
writing. Something happened and, instead of the spring peace, it was a shamble
with horses and men dying. In such cases one can’t do anything—he has to go on
about his own errand.
I’m so very dirty that I’ll leave off now while there’s a chance to have a
wash. I’m awfully muddy, and my hair is just ready for growing
potatoes—there’s about a pound of the real estate of France in it.
VIII
France June 6,1917
You certainly are owed a whole lot of letters, but it is very difficult to
find the time under present conditions—I didn’t get my breakfast until 7.30
p.m. yesterday. And to-day I was up at 4 a.m., and didn’t come back from up
front till dusk. So you see I really have some excuse for being temporarily a
bad correspondent. You don’t need to be sorry for me, though, or anything like
that, for I’m having quite a good time. After the mud this hard white sunlight
is a godsend. Do you remember———
June 7.—Thus far I got when I was interrupted, and another day has gone by.
I’m just back again from up front. I went there at dawn to do some
reconnaissance work. By eight the heat was sweltering—just the way it was when
we made our memorable trip down the Loire valley—only now there are no
estaminets at which to drink Ciro Citron. The only inhabitants of the place
where I am now are the mayor and his daughter, who returned the moment the
town was captured. Rather fine of them. Yesterday a French soldier looked in
(on special leave) to claim what was left of his cottage; just as much, I
should imagine, as you could make into a road. And yet, despite the fallen
houses, the fruit-trees are green and not so long ago were white with bloom
and nodding.
I’m feeling extraordinarily lazy and comfortable. I’ve taken two hours over
shaving and washing. My basin was the brass case of a big eight-inch naval
shell which was formerly the property of the Hun. I wish I could send you one
back. Two mornings ago I had a dive and swim in a shell-hole filled with
rain-water, which gives you some idea of the sized crater a big shell can
make. From henceforth, however, I shall have to eschew this pleasure, as I
understand that the ground is so poisoned with corpses, etc., that the water
is likely to bring on skin disease. I have that to a slight extent already.
Most of us have—it comes from eating no vegetables and nothing but tinned
stuff.
How interested you’d be if you could just go for a couple of hours’ walk with
me. Coming back to-day I marvelled that we had ever managed to make our
advance; the Hun machine-gun emplacements were so strongly fortified and well
chosen. It speaks volumes for the impetuosity of our infantry.
IX
France June 17, 1917
I believe it must be nearly a week since I wrote. The reason is that I’m down
at the wagon-lines, supposed to be resting, which is when we work the hardest.
First of all, we had a grand inspection of the Brigade, which kept one going
from 5 a.m. to 10.30 p.m., cleaning harness. Then we had Brigade sports, which
are not yet over, and which don’t leave an officer with any leisure. The best
time for letter-writing is when one is in action, since you sit in a dug-out
for interminable hours with nothing much to keep you busy.
I’m looking forward very much to the receipt of Khaki Courage; it hasn’t come
yet. It will be like reading something absolutely beyond my knowledge.
It is now evening. This has been a mixed day. I’ve been orderly officer. This
morning I heard Canon Scott preach—he was the father I wrote to you about whom
I met going up front in the winter to look for the body of his son. He’s a
fine old chap, and fully believes that he’s fated to leave his bones in
France. This afternoon was spent in harness-cleaning and this evening in
watching a Brigade display of boxing. A strange world! But you’ll judge that
we’re having quite good times. Last night we had an open-air concert—“Silver
Threads among the Gold,” “The Long, Long Trail,” etc. Trenches lay behind us
and ahead of us—not so long ago Huns could have reached us with a revolver
shot, where we were all sitting. Overhead, like rooks through the twilight,
our fighting planes sailed home to bed. Far away on the horizon, observers in
the Hun balloons must have been watching us. It was almost possible to forget
that a war existed; almost, until’ a reminder came with a roar and column of
black smoke to a distant flank.
Monday.
This letter gets scribbled in pieces. I’m now waiting for the afternoon parade
to fall in. The gramophone is strumming out a banjo song, and in my galvanized
hut it’s as hot as———. Most of the men strip off everything but their breeches
and go about their horses dripping like stokers. The place isn’t so unlike
Petewawa in some respects, except that there is no water. You look for miles
across a landscape of sage-green and chalk, with straight French roads running
without a waver from sky-line to sky-line. There’s nothing habitable in
sight—only grey piles and splintered trees. But in spite of the wholesale
destruction one finds beauty. You’d smile if you could see our camp—it looks
like a collection of gipsy bivouacs made of lean-tos of wood with canvas and
sand-bags for roofs. The rats are getting bold, and coming out of the
trenches—rather a nuisance. It’s strange to be here playing football on the
very ground over which not so long ago I followed the infantry within half an
hour of the commencement of the attack. Our wounded chaps were crawling back,
trying to drag themselves out of the Hun barrage, which was ploughing up the
ground all around, and the Huns were lying like piled-up wheatsacks in their
battered front line. One learns to have a very short memory and to be glad of
the present.
Within sight a little trench tramway runs just like the Welsh toy-railway of
our childhood. It leads all the way to Blighty and New York and Kootenay. One
can see the wounded coming out on it, and sometimes sees them with a little
envy.
X
France June 23,1917
Last night Khaki Courage arrived. I found the Officers’ Mess assembled round
my mail—they’d guessed what was in the package. I had intended smuggling the
book away, and did actually succeed in getting it into my trench-coat pocket.
A free fight ensued and, since there were four against one, I was soon
conquered. Then one of them, having taken possession of the little volume,
danced about our tin tabernacle reading extracts. I had planned to ride into a
neighbouring city for dinner that night, but sat reading till nearly twelve. I
can’t thank you all enough for your loving work. I think the proof of how well
you have done it is, that my brother officers are quite uncynically keen about
it. If they, who have shared the atmosphere which I have unconsciously set
down in its pages, can read with eagerness and without ridicule, I think the
book, as compiled by you, dear people, should stand the test.
Do you remember a description I gave you some months back of seeing Huns
brought up from a captured dug-out? That’s long enough ago now for me to be
able to give you a few details. A fortnight before the show commenced it was
planned that an officer from each battery with a party of volunteers should
follow up the infantry attack and build a road through the Hun Front line over
which our artillery should advance. The initial work was carried on at night,
and the road was built right up to our own front-line. On the morning of the
attack I took my volunteers forward and hid with the rest of the party in one
of our support trenches. We judged that we should escape the Hun barrage
there, and should have advanced before his retaliation on our back country
commenced. Soon after midnight, on a cold morning when the sleet was falling,
we set out. The sky was faintly tinged with a grey dawn when our offensive
opened. Suddenly the intense and almost spiritual quiet was changed into
frantic chaos. The sky was vividly lit with every kind of ingeniously
contrived destruction. In addition to his other shells, the Hun flung back gas
and liquid fire. It looked as though no infantry could live in it. Within an
hour of the offensive starting, each officer crept out of his trench and went
forward to reconnoitre the ground, taking with him one N.C.O. and a runner. My
runner carried with him a lot of stakes with white rags attached for marking
out our route. We wound our way carefully through the shells until we reached
our own Front line. Here the Hun barrage was falling briskly, and gas-shells
were coming over to beat the band. The bursting of explosives was for all the
world like corn popping in a pan. We ran across what had been No Man’s Land
and entered the Hun wire. My job was to build from here to his
support-trenches. His frontline trench was piled high with dead. The whole
spectacle was unreal as something that had been staged; the corpses looked
like wax-works. One didn’t have time to observe much, for flames seemed to be
going off beneath one’s feet almost every second, and it seemed marvellous
that we contrived to live where there was so much death. As we went farther
back we began to find our own khaki-clad dead. I don’t think the Huns had got
them; it was our own barrage, which they had followed too quickly in the
eagerness of the attack. Then we came to where the liquid fire had descended,
for the poor fellows had thrown themselves into the pools in the shell-holes
and only the faces and arms were sticking out. Then I recognised the
support-trench, which was the end of my journey, and planted my Union Jack as
a signal for the other officers who were to build ahead of me. With my runner
and N.C.O. I started to reconnoitre my road back, planting my stakes to mark
the route. When I was again at what had been our Front line, I sent my runner
back to guide in my volunteers. What a day it was! For a good part of the time
the men had to dig, wearing their gas-helmets. You never saw such a mess—sleet
driving in our faces, the ground hissing and boiling as shells descended, dead
men everywhere, the wounded crawling desperately, dragging themselves to
safety. I saw sights of pity and bravery that it is best not to mention, and
all the time my brave chaps dug on, making the road for the guns. Soon through
the smoke grey-clad figures came in tottering droves, scorched, battered,
absolutely stunned. They looked more like beasts in their pathetic dumbness.
One hardly recognized them as enemies. All day we worked, not stopping to eat,
and by the evening we saw the first of our guns advancing. It’s a great game,
this war, and searches the soul out. That night I slept in the mud, clothes
and all, the dreamless sleep of the dog-tired.
Note.—Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson was wounded in the right arm at Vimy on 26th
June. He was evacuated with a serious case of gas-gangrene, and after being
in, first, a Casualty Clearing Hospital and then a Base Hospital, was sent
back to England on 8th July, where he was in a hospital at Wandsworth, London,
till the end of August. His arm was in such a serious condition that at first
it was thought necessary to amputate it. Fortunately after days of ceaseless
care this was avoided.
XI
Hospital
London July 8, 1917
A fortnight ago to-day I got wounded. The place was stitched up and didn’t
look bad enough to go out with. Three days later there was an attack and I was
to be observer. My arm got poisoned while I was on the job, and when I came
back I was sent out. Blood-poisoning started, and they had to operate three
times; for a little while there was a talk of amputation. But you’re not to
worry at all about me now, for I’m getting on splendidly and there’s no cause
for anxiety. They tell me it will take about two months before I get the full
use of my arm back. Reggie was in London on leave and got his leave extended—I
missed him by an hour. J. L. was round to see me this morning and is cabling
to you. I don’t think you ought to cross while the risk is so great and
there’s a difficulty in obtaining passports—though you know how I’d love to
have you.
I’ve missed all my letters for the past fortnight. Please excuse me, for my
arm gets very tired, and I’m not supposed to use it.
XII
London July 25, 1917
I’m going on all right, but can’t use my arm much for writing just at present,
so you won’t mind short letters, will you? I got the first written by you
since I was hurt, yesterday. I am so glad that America is so patriotic.
Yesterday, to my great surprise, I was called up by the High Commissioner of
Canada, and on going to see him found he wanted me to start at once on
preparing an important government statement. Since I’m forbidden to use my arm
for writing, I’m to have a stenographer and dictate my stuff after doing the
interviewing. This job is only temporary. And I think it is possible after I
have finished it, if they refuse to allow me to return to the Front at once,
that I may get a leave to America. I wouldn’t want to get a long one, as I am
so anxious to get back to France.
Don’t worry at all about me. I feel quite well now, and go about with my arm
in a sling and am allowed out of hospital to do this work all day. As soon as
my ann grows stronger I’ll write you a good long letter, but while it is as it
is at present I have to restrict myself to bare essentials.
Oh, did I tell you? I wouldn’t have missed coming through London on a
stretcher for pounds. The flower-girls climbed into the ambulance and showered
us with roses. All the way as we passed people waved and shouted. It was a
kind of royal procession, and, like a baby, I cried. XIII
London August 3,1917
I’ve just come back to my office in Oxford Circus from lunching at the
Rendezvous. Next to my table during lunch were two typical Wardour Street
dealers, rubbing their hands and chortling over a cheap buy.
I wonder how long this different way of life is going to last. Someone will
snap his fingers and heigh-ho, presto! I shall be back in France. This little
taste of the old life gives me a very vivid idea of the sheer glee with which
I shall greet the end of the war. How jolly comfortable it will be to be your
own master—not that one ever is his own master while there are other people to
live for. But I mean, what an extraordinary miracle it will seem to be allowed
to reckon one’s life in years and not in weeks—to be able to look forward and
plan and build. And yet—this is a confession—I can see myself getting up from
my easy-chair and going out again quite gladly directly there is another war,
if my help is needed. There was a time, long ago, when I used to regard a
soldier with horror, and wondered how decent folk could admire him; the red of
his coat always seemed to me the blood-red of murder. But it isn’t the killing
that counts—you find that out when you’ve become a soldier; it’s the power to
endure and walk bravely, and the opportunity for dying in a noble way. One
doesn’t hate his enemy if he’s a good soldier, and doesn’t even want to kill
him from any personal motive—he may even regret killing him while in the act.
I think it’s just this attitude that makes our Canadians so terrible—they kill
from principle and not from malice.
I’m seeing all my old friends again, lunching with one and dining with
another, and have been to some matinees. But I can go to no evening
performances, because I have to be in the hospital at 10 p.m.
I really am hoping to get a week in New York after this piece of work is done,
after which back to France till the war is ended.
XIV
London August 30, 1917
I’ve just left hospital and am staying at this hotel. You keep saying in your
letters that you never heard how I got my injury. I described it—but that
letter must have gone astray. On 26th June I was wounded not by a shell, but
by a piece of an iron chimney which was knocked down on to my right arm. I had
it sewn up and for two days it was all right. The third I went up for an
attack and it started to swell—by the time I came back I had gas-gangrene. The
arm is better now and I’m on sick leave, though still working. They’ve made me
an offer of a job here in London, but I should break my heart if I could not
go back to the Front. But I think when I’ve finished here that I may get a
special leave, with permission to call in at New York. Wouldn’t that be grand?
I don’t want to raise your hopes too high, but it seems extremely likely that
I shall see you shortly. I was to-day before my medical board, and they gave
me two months’ home service. I have been promised that as soon as a new
Canadian ruling on home leave is confirmed, my application for leave will go
through.
If that happens, I shall cable you at once that I am coming. It doesn’t seem
at all possible or true that this can be so, and I’m making myself no promises
till I’m really on the boat. It would be better that you should not, also. I’m
taking a gamble and am going to order a new tunic for the occasion this
afternoon.
It’s a golden afternoon outside—the kind that turns the leaves red at
Kootenay, with the tang of iced wine in the air. The sound of London is like
the tumming of a thousand banjos. It’s good to be alive, and very wonderful
after all that has happened.
Note.—Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson arrived at Quebec on 26th September and came
home on the following day. He was at home for a month. During that time he
spoke in public on several occasions, and wrote the book which was brought out
the following spring, entitled “The Glory of the Trenches.”
XIV
Somewhere on the Atlantic November 11, 1917
Here’s the first letter since I left New York, coming to you. It’s seven in
the morning; I’m lying in my bunk, expecting any minute to be called to my
bath.
So far it’s been a pleasant voyage, with rolling seas and no submarines. There
are scarcely a hundred passengers, of whom only four are ladies, in the first
class. The men are Government officials, Army and Navy officers going on
Cook’s Tours, and Naval attachés. The American naval men are an especially
fine type. We do all the usual things—play cards, deck-golf and sleep
immoderately, but always at the wrong times.
I’m going back for the second time, and going back in the most placid frame of
mind. I compare this trip with my first trip over as a soldier. I was awfully
anxious then, and kept saying good-bye to things for the last time. Now I live
day by day in a manner which is so take-it-for-granted as to be almost
commonplace. I’ve locked my imagination away in some garret of my mind and the
house of my thoughts is very quiet.
What bricks you all were in the parting—there wasn’t any whining—you were a
real soldier’s family, and I felt proud of you. It was just a kind of “Good
luck, old chap”—with all the rest of the speaking left to the eyes and hands.
That’s the way it should be in a world that’s so full of surprises.
This trip has done a tremendous lot for me—I shall always know now that the
trenches are not the whole of the horizon. Before, when I landed in France, it
seemed as though a sound-and sight-proof curtain had dropped behind and
everything I had known and loved was at an end. One collects a little bit of
shrapnel and, heigho, presto! one’s home again. On my second trip, the war
won’t seem such a world without end.
To-night I have to pack—that’s wonderful, too. I’m wondering whether Reggie
will be on the station. I shall send a telegram to warn him.
XVI
The Ritz Hotel, London November 11, 1917
This was the date at which I had to report back at Headquarters. Actually I
reported back yesterday, because to-day is Sunday. I found that I had been
detailed not for France, but for work under the High Commissioner. You know
what such news means to me. I at once did my best to fight the order, but was
told that it was a military order in which I had no choice. I start work
to-morrow at Oxford Circus House, but shall put in an urgent request to go to
France.-I shall at least try to get some limitations to the period of my stay
in England. Even when I was in hospital I used to feel that the last
stretcher-case out of the fighting was someone to be worshipped—he was nearer
to the sacrifice than I. And now I’m not to go back for months, perhaps—I
shall eat my heart out in England.
Reggie fell asleep and has just wakened. He was dreaming, he said, the best
dream in the world. It was that he might land back in New York on 20th
December and spend Christmas with you—then go up to Kootenay to get a glimpse
of his little green home among the snow and apple trees and—— “And then what?”
I asked. He made a wry face. “Go back to hunting submarines,” he said quickly.
Go back! We all want to go back. Why? Because it’s so easy to find reasons for
not going back probably. I shall raise heaven and earth to be sent back—and
you’ll be glad of it.
There’s something that I shouldn’t tell you were I going back to-morrow. Last
week I met one of my gunners on leave. He was standing on the island in
Piccadilly Circus. I learnt from him that every officer who was with me at the
battery when I was wounded has since been wiped out. Even some who joined
since have been done for. Three have been killed, the rest wounded, gassed,
and the major has gone out with concussion. Among the killed is poor S., the
one who was my best friend in France, You remember he had a young wife, and
his first baby was born in February. He used to carry the list of all the
people I wanted written to if I were killed, and I had promised to do the same
for him. In addition to the officers, many of the men whom I admired have
“gone west.” All this was told me casually in the heart of London’s pleasure,
with the taxis and buses streaming by.
A few days ago a pitiful derelict of the streets crossed my path. I’d been
dining out in the West End with L. and P. and was on my way back, when a girl
stopped me. She stopped me for the usual reason, and I suppose I refused her
rudely. The next thing I knew she was crying. She said she had been walking
for twelve hours, and was cold and tired, and ready to fall from weariness. It
was very late, and I scarcely knew where to take her, but we found a little
French restaurant open in Gerrard Street. On coming into the light, I
discovered that she had a little toy dog under her arm, just as tired of life
as herself. It was significant that she attended to the dog’s before her own
needs. We had to tempt it with milk before it would eat—then she set to work
herself ravenously. I learnt her story by bits. She was a discharged munition
worker, had strained herself lifting shells, and hadn’t the brains or strength
for anything but the streets. When she left the restaurant the lap-dog was
again tucked beneath her arm. It was nearly midnight when she disappeared in
the raw chilliness of the scant electric light. People die worse deaths than
on battle-fields.
Wednesday.—I’ve been working for the last three days at the Minister’s, and
still have no inkling of what is to happen to me. My major walked in to-day;
he wants me to wait till his sick-leave is over, after which we can return
together. He’ll put in a strong personal request for me to be allowed to
return. He got concussion of the brain eight weeks ago through a shell
bursting in his dug-out. S. was wounded at the same time, but didn’t go out
till next day. He had got one hundred yards from the battery when he and his
batman were killed instantly by the same shell.
Reggie wasn’t in town when I arrived. He didn’t meet me till Friday. What with
playing with him and working here I don’t get much time for writing. But
you’ll hear from me again quite soon.
XVII
The Ritz, London November 15, 1917