War Letters of a Public-School Boy   By: Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones (1896-1917)

WAR LETTERS

OF A

PUBLIC SCHOOL BOY

[Illustration: Lieut. Paul Jones.

( From a Photograph by his Brother. )]

WAR LETTERS

OF A

PUBLIC SCHOOL BOY

BY

PAUL JONES

Lieutenant of the Tank Corps

Scholar Elect of Balliol College, Oxford: Head of the Modern Side and Captain of Football, Dulwich College, 1914

WITH A MEMOIR BY HIS FATHER

HARRY JONES

He was the very embodiment in himself of all that is best in the public school spirit, the very incarnation of self sacrifice and devotion.

A DULWICH MASTER.

WITH EIGHT PLATES

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 1918

CONTENTS

Page Introductory 1

PART I. MEMOIR

Chapter

1. Childhood 9 2. At Dulwich College 14 3. Football 28 4. Cricket 37 5. Editor of The Alleynian 41 6. Public Schools and the War 47 7. Tastes and Hobbies 52 8. Music 59 9. Literature and Ethics 72 10. History and Politics 85 11. In the Army 98 12. Personal Characteristics 110

PART II. WAR LETTERS

At a Home Port 121 With the 9th Cavalry Brigade 131 With a Supply Column 186 In the Somme Battlefield 202 With the 2nd Cavalry Brigade 212 With the Tank Corps 229

PART III

Epilogue 257

INDEX 277

LIST OF PLATES

H. P. M. Jones as 2nd Lieut. A.S.C. Frontispiece

To face page Paul as an Infant 8 In his 6th Year 12 Winning the Mile, March 27, 1915 22 Dulwich College First XV, 1914 15 28 Dulwich Modern Side XV, 1914 15 32 Paul Jones in his 19th Year 110 As a Subaltern in the A.S.C. 120

WAR LETTERS

OF A

PUBLIC SCHOOL BOY

INTRODUCTORY

These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy ... And those who would have been, Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

RUPERT BROOKE.

In deciding to publish some of the letters written by the late Lieutenant H. P. M. Jones during his twenty seven months' service with the British Army, accompanying them with a memoir, I was actuated by a desire, first, to enshrine the memory of a singularly noble and attractive personality; secondly, to describe a career which, though tragically cut short, was yet rich in honourable achievement; thirdly, to show the influence of the Great War on the mind of a public school boy of high intellectual gifts and sensitive honour, who had shone with equal lustre as a scholar and as an athlete.