Category: Biographies

Living Bayonets: A Record of the Last Push

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 writt...

Chapters

5. Part 5

Well, I’ve had a great trip this last time. I went to see refugee work—and saw it. There were barracks full of babies—the youngest only six days’ old. There were very many child...

1. Part 1

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...

9. Part 9

I have spoken several times to you about the test of war; how it acknowledges one chief virtue—courage. A man may be a poet, painter, may speak with the tongue of angels; but, i...

3. Part 3

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...

6. Part 6

The day after that I went forward to do my 24-hour spell at the observing station. When I saw my first Hun after so long an absence, I felt more like hugging him than trying to...

2. Part 2

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...

4. Part 4

I wonder if you’ve reached the point yet where you don’t think that dying matters? I suspect you have. You remember what Roosevelt said after seeing his last son off, “If he com...

7. Part 7

I’m in a beautiful part of the country at present—it must be beautiful, for it is providing us with three ducks for dinner to-night. I doubt whether you could get three all at o...

8. Part 8

With me it’s 6.30 in the evening. I’m sitting in a farmhouse overlooking the usual French farmyard. The chickens fly in at the window—also the cats. The window is my own mode of...

11. Part 11

But to return to my story. After the second shell had caught us and others were popping all about us, I made up my mind that the enemy had a direct line on us. I have since been...

10. Part 10

I haven’t seen a paper for nearly a fortnight, so don’t know what news of the Front has been published and can risk telling you nothing. Suffice it to say that I’m having the mo...

12. Part 12

We British and men of the Dominions did not always feel this way. When we entered the war we determined to remain gentlemen whatever happened. We weren’t going to be vulgar and...