Cables from Kabul is Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles’s valedictory account of his years as ambassador to Kabul (2007-9) and as this country’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (2009-10).
Cables from Kabul is Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles’s valedictory account of his years as ambassador to Kabul (2007-9) and as this country’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (2009-10).
A long telegram reporting on the ramp ceremony for a fallen soldier, Corporal Damian Stephen Lawrence of the 2nd Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment, opens the book. It is a beautiful piece, describing the service — ‘in the best traditions of lapidary Anglicanism. Plenty of dignity but not too much religion’ — and the military ritual of the event. The Hercules taking the young soldier home flew over the parade ground ‘starboard wing dipped, in impossibly eloquent tribute from the Royal Air Force to Corporal Lawrence and all those who had fallen here.’
This elegiac mood continues as the author begins his Preface with the last stanza of ‘Dover Beach’.
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