The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1917-06-28
In Letters to Relatives From the
Battlefields Coningsby Daw-
son Describes Emotions
Under Fire.
CONINGSBY DAWSON, English

low up the success of his novel, "A
Garden Without Walls" when the war
came. He realized that as he was
Briton of military age it was his duty
to put literature behind him and fight
for his country. Delaying only long
enough to finish some work which he
had promised his publishers, he crossed
from this country into Canada and
there qualified as an officer in the Ca
madam forces. Shipped thence across
the ocean last summer, he found him.
self, after only a short stay in England,
plunged without further ado into the
hell on the Somme.
For months thereafter he dealt and
lodged death from morning to night,
with scarcely the time to get really
good wash or change Of clothes. He
saw men killed a few feet from him;
saw corpses by the hundred lying in
hideously Ifelike postures amid the
black mud of shell holes, and, faithful
to his profession as writer, he fought
with the full strength of his intellect
to grasp and visualize and set down on
paper the terrific impact Of new and
horrible impressions which the war
brought to him. He could not do it.
Who can? But Coningsby Dawson,
novelist, has given us something bet
ter than a novel in his latest volume,
Garry On" made up Of letters from
the trenches to members Of his family
on this side of the Atlantic, collected
by his father.
He makes you see the reactions to
the war of a civilian in uniform, man
accustomed to the ease of life who is
abruptly plunged into carnage and
barbariSm and stencil.
''This war will be won by tired men
who will never again pass an insurance
examination is one of the phrases
one of many, that flash the Somme
horror to his readers. And through
out the book the novelist remains al
ways writer. In candle lit dugout,
with shells screaming overhead, he
tries to plan the novel OF tomorrow.
Coningsby Dawson sailed for Europe
last July. ''I've become little child
again in Gods hands," he wrote to his
family after months Of training in a
Canadian camp, with full confidence
in his love and wisdom and a growing
trust that whatever he decides for me
will be the best and kindest." A short
two months later he was in northern
France, hurled without easy grada-
tions into the midst of the carnage of
the SOmme. In one Of his first letters
from Tho %1,or 1,n tn {o ~
ter:
cts extraordinary how commonplace
war becomes to a man who is thrust
among others who consider it common.
place. Not fifty yards away from me
a dead German lies rotting and uncov'
cred. I dare say he was buried once
and then blown out by a SHE'LL"
Admiration for the GOODNESS of the
men engaged in the deadly work con
stantly overcame the young novelist as
he grew to know his comrades better
eff unconscious heroism is the virtue
most to be desired" he wrote to his
father last September, land heroisn
spiced with strong sense of humo
at that, then pretty well every man
have met out here has the amazing
quits to wear his crown of thorns a:
though it were cap and bells" An(
in the same letter he gave this descrip
ton Of being under fire:
81 dare say you'll wonder how i
feels to be under shell fire. This i
how it feels: You don't realize you
danger until you come to think abou
it afterward. At the time it's like play
ing cocoanut SHES at a negro's head
only you're the head. You take to-
much interest in the sport of dodgin!
to be afraid
Describes Battlefield.
One Of the best passages in the en-
tire collection of letters is this descriI
ton of a battlefield as it is in norther
France today:
"Well, I've seen my first modern bat
tlefeld and am quite disillusione
dor is all in the souls Of the men VIII
creep through the squalor like vermi
its in nothing external.
"a modern battlefield is the abom
nation Of denominations. Imagine
vast stretch of dead country, pitte
with shell holes as though it had bee
mutilated with smallpox. There's nc
a leaf or a blade Of grass in sight. E'
cry house has either been leveled or
in ruins. No bird sings. Nothing stir
The only live sound is at night-th
scurry Of rats.
"You enter kind of ditch, called
trench. It leads on to another an
another in an unjoyful maze. Fro1
the sides feet stick out, and arms an
faces-the dead Of previous. encounter
One Of our chaps you say casual,
recognizing him by his boots or KHAKI
or Poor blighter-a Hun! One ca
afford to forget enmity in the pre-
ence Of the dead.
ut is horribly difficult sometimes
distinguish between the living and tt
slaughtered-they both lie so silent
in their little kennels in the earthe