This evening at ten o’clock local time , on this day marking the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, lights will dim in the city where I am now London , in streets and homes, and candles will burn in remembrance… of those who died. I share with you the remembrance of my uncle who was killed long before any of us were born- 2Lt David Chambers Burns, Black Watch Regiment- educated at the Jesuit Stonyhurst College.
“He was killed in Flanders during the Third battle of Ypres, on 1 October, one day short of his twentieth birthday and six weeks before the Armistice of 1918.
The Burnses were enthusiastic letter writers from an early age. During the last weeks of his life, David wrote regularly to his younger sister, Alice, who was a nine-year-old schoolgirl at the time, writing letters home that barely hinted at the horrors of the sodden trenches and the killing fields beyond. In early September 1918, he wrote to Alice with darkening humour: ‘Thank you very much for your interesting letter and the drawing of me in a gas mask. I will do my best to gratify your desires for a Hun helmet but at present I’m afraid the nearest I’ve been to the wily Bosche is when he comes over and bombs us as he did last night.”
David’s younger brother, my father Tom, (then aged twelve) was with his sister Alice and their mother Clara when the telegram bearing the news of David’s death arrived. After opening it, Clara sat stunned in the hall, with the paper in her hands, silenced by shock, and waiting for her husband to return from his job in the City. She told her children to restrain their tears and to mourn silently. ‘There was no more plotting of little flags on the map’, recalled my father many years later. ‘Our war was over. Quite soon it was over for everyone and they went mad with joy so that an awful irony was added to our empty world.”
Days later a Roman Catholic chaplain wrote to say that David had taken Holy Communion a few days before being wounded in the leg and then shot in the head by a German machine-gunner. His regimental commander commended Uncle David for his skills as a runner and his bravery in the line of fire. Then David’s adjutant, Tim Milroy returned from the front and married my father’s second sister Clarita. Later Tim introduced his younger brother Bill to Alice, and they too eventually married. My father’s faith in God was rekindled, and he would long treasure, with a mixture of worship and trepidation, the enduring memory of his beloved and heroic brother, an awkward role model of selfless sacrifice in the line of duty, cut off in the flower of youth.” Papa Spy, (Bloomsbury)
2Lt David Chambers Burns lies in the small cemetery of Slypskapelle, near to the field where he died.
Today we should mourn the dead of all wars and pray for human solidarity and peace. Never have we had more need of breaking of bread.
Have you read this book?
This is the book the late Graham Greene managed to read in manuscript form on his way to Moscow to visit his old friend Kim Philby. Greene – always generous with young aspiring authors – subsequently wrote to me saying: “You can quote me as saying this is a required book for anyone who wishes to understand the Argentine situation before and after the Falklands War.’