Bridgeton pioneer., 1917-06-21
on nSomme Front;
Stories Of Heroism
"This War VIII Be Won by Tired
Men," He Asserts; "i've Be-
come a Eiue Child In
Gods Hands"

| per. You laugh and whisper, "A nea
one, that
| "My first trip TO the trenches wa
up to No Mans Land. l went In tn
| early dawn and came to Nine. Tus
saud's show of the dead, frozen int,
immobility in the most extraordinar.
attitudes. Some of them were par
way out Of the ground, one hant
pressed TO the wound. the other point
ing, the head sunken and the hal
plastered over the forehead by repeat
ed rains. l kept ON wondering what
my companions would look like haG
they been three weeks dead. My i'm
agination became ingeniously and viv
Idly morbid. When had to step ovel
them to pass 1t 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 resurrec-
ton to visit No Mans Land.
Then the Huns see you, and the
shrapnel begins to fall. You crouch
like dog and run for it"
Soon after that a terrifying adven-
ture befell the novelist, of which he
makes light in letter to his mother:
To-day had the funniest experience
OF my nfe-got caught In a Hun cur
tain OF fire and had to lie on my tum-
my for two hours In a trench with the
shells bursting FIVE yards from me
and never scratch. You know how I
used to wonder what I'd do under such
circumstances. Well, l laughed. All
l could think of was the sleek people
walking down Fifth avenue and the
equally sleek crowds taking tea at the
Waldorf. 1t struck me as ludicrous
that l, who had been one Of them.
should be lying there lunchless."
Forgets to Be Afraid.
"Oh, If get back how differently 1
shall write!" he exclaims in another
letter, and he adds:
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
oesoiation-men's souls rise above the
distress-they have to In order to sur
vive. When you see how cheap mems
bodies are you cannot help but know
that the body is the least part of per-
sonality. -
Il plan novels galore and wonder
whether / shall ever write them the
way see them now. My Imagination
Is to an extent crushed by the stupen-
dousness Of reality. think am chang
ed In some stern spiritual way-strip-
ped Of f1abbiness. l am perhaps hard
.er-I can't say. That / should be a
novelist seems unreasonable-it's 30
long since I had my own way in the
world and met any one on artistic
terms"
Here is fine passage In a letter to
his sister:
THE great uplifting thought Is that
we have proved ourselves men. In
our death we set standard which In
ordinary life we could never have fol
lowed. 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 u.s. What God
will say to US we cannot guess, but he
can't be too hard on men who did their
duty"
He relates some terrible anecdotes OF
the front, among which the worst is
this:
Il met solitary private wandering
across shell torn field. I watched
him and thought something was wrong
by the aimlessness of his progress
When / spoke to him he looked at me
mistily and said: Dead men. Moon.
lit road He kept on repeating tht
phrase, and 1t was all that one coult
get out Of him. Probably the deat
men and the moonlit road were tn,
last sights he had before he went In
sane"
II don't know whether / have beer
able to make any Of my emotions cleal
to you in my letters" says Coningsb!
Dawson, writing after months Of con
stant fighting. Terror has a terribl,
fascination. Up to now l have Away
been afraid-afraid of small fears. A
last ! meet fear itself, and It sting,
my pride into an unprecedented cour
age" And In letter to his father h'
strikes forth this graphic bit:
Tive owed you a letter for som,
time, but I've been getting very littl,
leisure. You can't send steel message
to the kaiser and love notes to you
| family in the same breath"
One Mans Behavior.
The spirit of the whole book-th,
spirit which made the novelist's fathe
choose Garry On" as title for tn
volume Of his sons letters-is nowher
better shown than In these passages: