Voices of Silence (58 page)

No Man’s Land

Knox, Edmund Gregory Valpy
(1881–1971)

Worked under the pseudonym ‘Evoe’. Commissioned into the Lincolnshire Regt, 1914; wounded at Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele, 1917). Editor of
Punch,
1932–49
.

Mufti Once More

Laing, Allan M.

Imprisoned for a year as a conscientious objector in Wormwood Scrubs
.

I Lived a Year in London

Large, D.

Private with the Army Service Corps in Rouen
.

On Leave

Lawson, Henry Archibald Hertzberg
(1867–1922)

Australian poet and short-story writer.

Fighting Hard

Lee, Joseph
(1876–1949)

Enlisted as Private in the Black Watch, 1914; to France, February 1915; reached rank of Sergeant; commissioned, August 1917 into the King’s Royal Rifle Corps (60th Rifles); captured, November 1917 and spent rest of the war in prison in Germany. After the war he returned to being an artist
.

Carrying-Party

Macfarlane’s Dug-out

Stand-to!

The Billet

The Bullet

The Mouth-Organ

The Penitent

Tommy and Fritz

Leslie, Will

Private, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders; he appears to have survived the war
.

A Letter from Home

Gallipoli – In Memoriam

Letts, Winifred M.
(1882–1971)

Served from 1915 as VAD nurse. An Irish playwright and children’s author, she contributed to a number of journals, including
Punch
and the
Spectator.

A Sister in a Military Hospital

Pro Patria

The Call to Arms

Levey, Sivori
(b. 1879)

Lieutenant, 13th West Yorkshire Regt. Before the war he was an established writer of popular songs and verses; his final book, a study of the songs in Shakespeare’s plays, was published in 1924
.

My Motor-Bus Conductress

The Duck Board

The Road that Brought me to Roehampton

Littlejohn, William Henry
(1891–1917)

CSM. A civil servant in the Exchequer and Audit Dept, before the war he was a Sergeant in the Territorial branch of the Middlesex Regt; served in Gallipoli; killed during the Battle of Arras, 10 April 1917. Buried at Wancourt Bristol Cemetery
.

The Hospital Ship

Lyon, Walter Scott Stewart
(1886–1915)

Lieutenant. Joined the Royal Scots before the war; to Belgium, February 1915; killed near Ypres, 8 May 1915. His body was never found and his name is on the Menin Gate
.

Lines Written in a Fire-Trench

Macaulay, Rose
(1881–1958)

Novelist, essayist and poet
.

Peace

Macdonald, Nina

[How doth the little busy wife]

MacGill, Patrick
(1890–1963)

Enlisted as Private in the 18th London Regt (London Irish Rifles), 1914; promoted to Sergeant; to France, March 1915; wounded at Loos while serving as stretcher-bearer, October 1915; seconded to military intelligence. After the war became a novelist and playwright
.

After Loos

[I oft go out at night-time]

In the Morning

The Dawn

Mann, Hamish
(1896–1917)

Gazetted 2nd Lieutenant in 8th Bttn Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), July 1915; to France, August 1916; wounded, 9 April 1917 in the Battle of Arras, and died the next day. Buried in Aubigny Communal Cemetery Extension, Aubigny-en-Artois.

The Soldier

Manning, Frederic
(1882–1935)

Born in Australia but partly educated in England; enlisted as Private in the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, 1915; failed officer training course; to France, 1916; served on the Somme; promoted Lance-Corporal; commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Irish Regt, May 1917; posted to Ireland; resigned his commission because of ill health, February 1918. In 1929 published a highly praised fictionalised account of his war experiences,
The Middle Parts of Fortune,
reissued in 1930 as
Her Privates We.

Epigram, R. B.

Transport

Marchant, [first name unknown]

Cadet, no. 2 Flying Corps Cadet Wing
.

A Perfect Day

Menzies, George Kenneth
(1869–1954)

Contributor to
Punch.
Assistant Secretary and then Secretary to the Royal Society of Arts, 1917–35
.

The General

Meugens, M.G.

Prisoners of War

Miles, Patrick

The Victory March

Miller, Alfred

Private, RFA

Mud

Milne, Alan Alexander
(1882–1956)

Assistant Editor of
Punch
1906–14 and later creator of Winnie-the-Pooh; despite strong pacifist convictions, he volunteered in 1915; was commissioned into the Royal Warwickshire Regt, February 1915; was on the Somme, but was invalided out with trench fever, November 1916, and spent the rest of the war in intelligence
.

From a Full Heart

Gold Braid

Mitchell, C.M.

The Widow

Mitchell, Colin
(d. 1918)

Volunteered as Rifleman in the 3rd Rifle Bde; to France, early 1915; killed 22 March 1918 during the German spring assault. His body was never found and his name is on the Pozieres Memorial
.

Britain’s Daughters

Trampled Clay

Nichols, Robert
(1893–1944)

Commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery, October 1914; to France, August 1915; invalided out with shell-shock, August 1916. After the war, became a writer and academic
.

Noon

Ogilvie, William Henry
(1869–1963)

Went to Australia and lived in the outback, 1889–1901. An author and journalist, he published many books of equestrian poetry
.

Canadians

The Offside Leader

Oman, Carola
(1897–1978)

Served as Red Cross nurse on the Western Front, 1916–19, and in the Second World War. After the war she became a prolific writer
.

Night Duty in the Station

The Menin Road, March 1919

Unloading Ambulance Train

Peterson, John

Private, Seaforth Highlanders. Worked under the pseudonym ‘Private Pat’; he appears to have survived the war
.

Arras

R.I.P.

Phillips, Stephen

The Kaiser and Belgium

Physick, Edward Harold
(1878–1972)

Worked under the pseudonym ‘E.H. Visiak’. In 1916 he registered as a conscientious objector. After the war he was a novelist, poet and literary critic, known particularly for his work on Milton
.

The Pacifist

Platt, F.W.

Contributor to
Punch.

Verdun

Plumbe, C. Conway

Contributor to
Punch.

A Canadian to his Parents

My American Cousins

Pope, Jessie
(1868–1941)

Contributor to many newspapers and magazines, including
Punch,
and the author of numerous children’s books. Wilfred Owen’s strong dislike of her often thoughtless patriotic verse led him ironically to dedicate his poem ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ to her
.

Deportment for Women

Poulten, W. Clifford

Hood Bttn, RND; he appears to have survived the war.

To Belgium

Who Won the War?

Preece, H.J.

To the Followers of Christ among the Belligerent Nations

Priestley, John Boynton
(1894–1984)

Volunteered in the Duke of Wellington’s Regt, September 1914; to France, 1915; in the Battle of Loos, September 1915; wounded, 1917 and spent six months in England; commissioned and returned to France; badly gassed and invalided out of active service; transferred to Entertainments Section of the army. After the war, became a prolific novelist and playwright
.

A Halt on the March

Rees, G.E.

Telling the Bees

Rhys, Ernest Percival
(1859–1946)

He began his working life as a mining engineer, but from 1886 he worked as a literary editor. In 1890 he was a founder member of the Rhymer’s Club, and in 1906, with the publisher J.M. Dent, he founded the Everyman series, with the aim of publishing 1,000 titles, a total that was achieved ten years after his death
.

Lost in France

Reid, Mary

Stranraer War Memorial

Roberts, Richard Ellis
(1879–1953)

1st Div. Clerk in Admiralty, 1916–18. Journalist, Literary Editor of the
New Statesman
and of
Time and Tide.

The Unemployed

Robertson, Alexander
(1882–1916)

Before the war he was lecturer in history at Sheffield University. Corporal. Volunteered as a Private in the 12th (Service) Bttn York and Lancaster Regt. (The Sheffield Pals), September 1914; sailed with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force to Egypt, December 1915; to France, March 1916; missing on the Somme, 1 July 1916. His body was never found, and his name is on the Thiepval Memorial
.

After Visiting an Asylum

Ryan, J.M.

[Sing us a song of the Northern Seas]

Sackville, Lady Margaret
(1881–1963)

Daughter of the 7th Earl de Warr, from 1901 was a prolific writer. She joined the anti-war Union of Democratic Control, 1914; wrote poems denouncing women who supported the war as betrayers of their sons
.

Reconciliation

The Return

Victory

Samuels, Louie

Four Words

Sarson, H. Smalley

Private with the Canadian Imperial Force; he appears to have survived the war
.

The Armed Liner

The Shell

Saxon, T.A.

Lance-Corporal in the Australian Imperial Force; he appears to have survived the war
.

A Dug-out Lament

Scott-Moncrieff, Charles Kenneth
(1889–1930)

Commissioned into the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, August 1914; Captain, 1915; MC, 1917. After the war became famous as the translator of Proust
.

Back in Billets

Seaman, Owen
(1861–1936)

Contributor to
Punch
from 1894; editor, 1906–32.

Another ‘Scrap of Paper’

Model Dialogues for Air-Raids

More Peace-Talk in Berlin

‘Punch’ in the Enemy’s Trenches

The Soul of a Nation

Seeger, Alan
(1888–1916)

Born in New York; went to live in Paris, 1912; enlisted in the French Foreign Legion; killed on the Somme, 4 July 1916
.

On Returning to the Front after Leave

Service, Robert William
(1874–1958)

Poet, known as ‘The Canadian Kipling’. Born in Scotland, he was a correspondent for the
Toronto Star
during the Balkan Wars of 1912–13. Volunteered as an ambulance driver, 1914. After the war he settled in France and was a prolific poet and novelist
.

A Song of Winter Weather

Shakespeare, William G.
(1890–1975)

Trained at the Westminster Hospital before the war; volunteered for the RAMC in 1914; served in France throughout the war, rising to the rank of Major; after the war he stayed in the RAMC, serving in India and China; he was invalided out in 1943 and went into general practice
.

The Refugees

Ypres Cathedral

Shanks, Edward Richard Buxton
(1892–1953)

Enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles, 1914; commissioned into the 8th South Lancashire Regt, December 1914; invalided out, April 1915 and served for the rest of the war in the War Office. After the war, returned to being a writer and journalist and was the first winner of the Hawthornden Prize, 1919
. Meditation in June, 1917

On Trek

The Old Soldiers

Shirley, J.

A Vision of Blighty

Sitwell, Osbert
(1892–1969)

Was commissioned into the Sherwood Rangers, 1911, transferring in 1913 to the Grenadier Guards; part of the original BEF, he finished the war with the rank of Captain and became a man of letters
.

Tears

Sprague, Arthur

SSU 649, Convois Automobiles, AEF
.

The Crusader

Stewart, J.

Private, 2nd Hampshire Regt.

For the Gallipoli Peninsula

Stewart, John Ebenezer
(1889–1918)

Enlisted as Private in the Highland Light Infantry, 1914; commissioned into the Border Regt, 1914; to France, September 1915; fought in the Battle of the Somme and in the Ypres salient; awarded MC, 1917; wounded during the Battle of Messines, June 1917; promoted Captain; transferred to South Staffordshire Regt and commanded 4th Bttn; killed near Kemmell, 26 April 1918. His body was never found and his name is on the Tyne Cot Memorial
.

At Thiepval

Before Action

Streets, John William
(1885–1916)

Before the war was a Derbyshire miner; enlisted in the 12th (Service) Bttn, York and Lancaster Regt (The Sheffield Pals), 1914; to Egypt, 1915; to France, March 1916; promoted Sergeant; reported wounded and missing, 1 July 1916; officially notified killed, 1 May 1917. His body was never found, and his name is recorded on the Special Memorial at Euston Road Cemetery, Colincamps
.

A Soldiers’ Cemetery

At Dawn in France

Comrades

Shelley in the Trenches

Taylor, Ben

Imprisoned as a conscientious objector in Winchester Gaol
.

Compensation

Thorold, R.A.

Contributor to
Punch.

The Traitor

Tostevin, Earle H.

Sergeant, HQ Company, 164th US Infantry, AEF
.

Somewhere

Tripp, D. Howard

Aftermath

Tyrell, Father

From Prison