His Last Bow: This Terrible August (G)

[vaysh]

Canon Story: His Last Bow
Title: This Terrible August
Author: vaysh
Rating: G
Words: 60
Author's Notes: I took some liberties with the timeline of Arthur Conan Doyle's biography; in reality his son Kingsley was wounded already in 1916 on the first day of the battle of the Somme, and not in 1917 when "His Last Bow" was written. Kingsley Conan Doyle died of war-related influenza in 1918.


The pen is poised, the story due for publication in September. He likes to start in the middle of things. But the pen falters.

The telegram sits on the side of his desk. His son has been gravely wounded on the Somme. He cannot lose Kingsley, simply can't. The pen writes most terrible and blood-red gash and he hopes, hopes –

Comments

[jcporter1.livejournal.com]

So sad to think of all the loss.

[vaysh]

Just doing a bit of research for this drabble and seeing how WW1 had affected this one family made me realise, again, how devastating this war was for an entire generation.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

The opening of that story speaks powerfully of the horrors that are to come. You've highlighted how personal those horrors were for so many people.

[vaysh]

Quite a few of ACD's stories have striking beginnings but this one, I think, is his most powerful. I was immediately thinking about under what circumstances he may have written those words.

[winryweiss.livejournal.com]

Gosh, this is so powerful.

[vaysh]

Thank you so much.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

A while back, I read a collection of Conan Doyle's letters to his mother. I knew pretty much nothing about his family, and it was heartbreaking to read about children growing up, with me imagining what their futures might be, and then finding out their lives ended so abruptly. In LAST, the line between fiction and reality is far thinner than usual, which your 60 so clearly illustrates.

[vaysh]

The line of fiction and reality truly is thinner in this story than in others. Reading about Conan Doyle, I doubt that he in reality wrote The Last Bow to work through his grief for the dead in his close family. He comes across as such an energetic, even combative man,that I have no doubt he wrote the story to have his hero get back at the Germans. But underneath, in between the lines, I think one can tell, there is a deep sorrow.