I visited Katherine Mansfield's family home in Thorndon, Wellington a few weeks ago - to see the exhibition "In my very bones - Katherine Mansfield's War" about the relationship between her and her brother Leslie Heron Beauchamp, and how much of her writing about New Zealand was triggered by his death in World War I.
Leslie's death was no noble sacrifice, no valiant death - it was an accident, as many military deaths are. He was a bombing officer in the South Lancashire Regiment, and while demonstrating the use of a hand grenade to another officer, the grenade went off prematurely. Both officers were killed, Leslie surviving by about three quarters of an hour before dying of his wounds at the site. From the exhibition record:
Leslie's death was no noble sacrifice, no valiant death - it was an accident, as many military deaths are. He was a bombing officer in the South Lancashire Regiment, and while demonstrating the use of a hand grenade to another officer, the grenade went off prematurely. Both officers were killed, Leslie surviving by about three quarters of an hour before dying of his wounds at the site. From the exhibition record:
In late September 1915, Beauchamp’s
battalion departed for the Western Front. Soon after landing he wrote his last letter
to his sister, Katherine:
“Dearest Katie, no time for a letter am
frightfully fit and full of beans! The trenches are beastly wet owing to the
big bombardment going on. So far have remained scathless so that’s all right!”
This would be his last letter. The
following day, on the 6th of October, Beauchamp was killed during a
training accident in Ploegsteert Wood, Belgium. He was conducting a
grenade-throwing demonstration when the ‘bomb’ he was holding exploded
prematurely, mortally wounding him.
