LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 WAR POEMS 
 NOVELS 
 
 THE PURSUIT OF MR FAVIEL 
 MERIEL OF THE MOORS 
 THE JUDGMENT OF ILLINGBOROUGH 
 THE JUNE LADY 
 
 BOOKS OF TRAVEL 
 
 AN IGNORANT IN INDIA 
 THE FAIR DOMINION 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 R. K VERNEDE 
 
 LONDON; 48 PALL MALL 
 
 W, COLLINS SONS & CO. LTD, 
 
 GLASGOW MELBOURNE AUCKLAND 
 
Copyright 1917 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 MY first idea in printing my husband's letters 
 was to have them, in a complete and more 
 convenient form, for private circulation among 
 those few intimate friends and relations to whom I 
 had sent copies of each letter as it arrived. During 
 the last few weeks, however, I have been asked 
 by so many people to have his letters published, 
 that I have at last decided to let them appear as 
 they now do. But I do this very hesitatingly. 
 To those who knew my husband, and who know 
 his writings, no apology is needed. To others I 
 feel I should like to give some explanation. The 
 letters were written under very great difficulties. 
 How great, I think, few people can realise without 
 having known the man. 
 
 He was French by descent, his branch of the 
 Vernede family being Huguenots, who left southern 
 France in 1685 at the Revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes, and emigrated to Holland and then to 
 England. His horror of cold and damp I always 
 thought was due to his southern French blood; 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 it was such a real and physical thing. He could 
 stand any amount of heat, but the cold, especially 
 damp cold, seemed positively to numb^him. It 
 still seems almost incredible to me how he survived 
 those two awful winters in the trenches. And it 
 must be remembered that he was over forty, 
 doing 2nd lieutenant's work with boys mostly 
 about half his age. 
 
 The spelling of the letters also made me rather 
 doubtful. It was a trick of his always to mis-spell 
 certain words in writing or mis-pronounce them 
 in talking. They are all of them family words, 
 generally with a story attached. At first I thought 
 of spelling the words properly, but in many cases 
 this seemed to make the sentences so much more 
 pompous that I have kept them as they were 
 originally written, and can only hope they will not 
 strike any one as either affected or irritating. 
 
 Before he went out to France I made him 
 promise that he would tell me everything just as he 
 thought of it and not try to make things out better 
 than they were. He kej. . that promise, and I think 
 it was a help to him to feel that he could say 
 things just as they occurred to him, though 
 once or twice he was doubtful as to whether he 
 was worrying me by telling me too much. But 
 I repeatedly assured him that my imagination 
 was quite vivid enough to invent the things if 
 he did not tell them to me. And I think he was 
 convinced of it. 
 
 vi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 A short sketch of his life up to 1914 may be of 
 interest to some people. 
 
 Robert Ernest Vernede was born in London, 
 June 4, 1875. He went to St Paul's School, 
 won the Milton prize in 1893, for an original English 
 poem, and a classical exhibition at St John's 
 College, Oxford, in the following year. He took 
 Greats in 1898. 
 
 On leaving Oxford he lived at home in London 
 and took up writing as a profession. He began 
 by writing articles and short stories. His first 
 novel, The Pursuit of Mr Faviel, was published 
 in 1905. It was very successful, and has since 
 been republished by Nelson's in their yd. edition, 
 and, under the title of The Flight of Faviel, in 
 America. It was followed by Meriel of the 
 Moors, (1906) ; The Judgment of Illingborough 
 (1908), and The June Lady (1911). A book 
 about two boys, called The Quietness of Dick, 
 written some time earlier, appeared in America 
 in the same year. He also wrote .for some years 
 for Black and White, and later for the Bystander. 
 But his two books of travel, An Ignorant in 
 India and The Fair Dominion, both published in 
 1911, and some short stories for Harper's Magazine 
 and Blackwood's Magazine, were, I think, what he 
 most enjoyed writing, and poetry he always loved 
 to write. 
 
 His first war poem, ' England to the Sea,' 
 vii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 appeared in the Times of Augttet 7, 1914. He 
 wrote several more in the next few weeks, and 
 after that he wrote occasionally when he had a 
 little quiet time. After being wounded, and while 
 down in Sheppey, November, 1916, he finished 
 ' Before the Assault/ which he had had in his 
 mind for some time and which he mentioned in 
 his letter of March i, 1916. It was published 
 in the Observer of December 17, 1916. Two 
 other poems mentioned in his letters were ' The 
 Sergeant/ published in the Daily Chronicle, 
 August 31, 1916, and ' A Petition/ published 
 in the Times of May 5, 1917, a month after his 
 death. These he wrote in the trenches in the 
 summer of 1916 and sent home to me in a 
 manuscript book before he went into action 
 on the Somme. When his kit came back from 
 France after his death, I found two more poems 
 that he had written or finished since he went 
 out in December, 1916, ' At Delville ' and ' A 
 Listening Post '; they are included in the collec- 
 tion of his poems recently published by Messrs. 
 Heinemann. 
 
 His poems brought him appreciation from all 
 parts of the world, and since his death I have had 
 many other kind letters which show his influence 
 was far greater than we knew. I should like 
 especially to mention a letter I have had from 
 Canon H. D. Rawnsley. He wrote saying he had 
 never met my husband, but that he had read his 
 
 viii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 poems with very great pleasure, and had expected 
 great things from him if he had been spared. 
 He also sent a sonnet which appears on another 
 page. 
 
 In 1902 we were married, and came to live in 
 Hertfordshire in the depth of the country. He 
 loved the country life and became an enthusiastic 
 gardener. He was also a keen lawn tennis player, 
 and took a great deal of trouble in making a good 
 tennis lawn, besides planning and making the 
 whole garden out of a piece of waste land which 
 was covered with nettles and scrap iron when we 
 took the house, He hated English winters, and 
 we always tried to go away in the winter, instead 
 of in the summer when our garden was at its best. 
 One winter we travelled in Holland, Denmark, 
 Sweden, and Finland. And another winter we 
 spent a month in Switzerland. He enjoyed the 
 sunny cold or at all events the sun part of it, 
 but decided that on the whole he liked warm 
 climates better. Another winter we spent in Pau, 
 where we played much tennis. But the winter 
 that he enjoyed most was when we went to 
 India and spent three months with his brother, 
 who was a Collector in Bengal. He revelled in 
 the climate and was much interested in the people. 
 On our return he wrote some articles in Black-wood's 
 Magazine, and later published the book already 
 mentioned, An Ignorant in India. He was much 
 gratified by the appreciation of this book by 
 
 ix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Anglo-Indians. Only about two years ago his 
 brother's wife in India met the Adjutant of one of 
 the Indian regiments, who, on hearing her name, 
 asked if she was any relation of R. E. Vernede. 
 He went on to say that An Ignorant in India was 
 'a Classic in the Mess/ and they made every new- 
 comer read it. 
 
 He went to Canada for a three months' trip in 
 the autumn of 1910, and after his return he wrote 
 The Fair Dominion. I was unable to go. This 
 was the only time we were separated during the 
 whole of our married life until the war began, 
 except for a fortnight's walking tour he took in 
 Portugal in May, 1914, about which some articles 
 appeared in the Bystander. 
 
 When war was declared my husband was four 
 years over age, but after reading ' The Call/ 
 which he wrote a few days after war began, I 
 knew he felt that he must go. 
 
 He tried to enlist several times, but was refused 
 because of his age; at last, on September 4, he 
 enlisted in the Universities and Public Schools 
 Brigade of the Royal Fusiliers. Even there he was 
 nearly refused because of his age. He was deter- 
 mined to join, but he would not mis-state his age. 
 He gave his age as 39, but they wrote it down 
 as 35 and accepted him. 
 
 The brigade 4000 assembled in Hyde Park 
 on September 18. They marched to Victoria 
 Station and went down to Epsom by train. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 They were billeted all over the town, and he was 
 lucky enough to get a very pleasant billet, where 
 I was able to join him at the end of November. 
 I was there until the middle of March, 1914, when 
 the men went out of billets into huts in Woodcote 
 Park. 
 
 Before enlisting he had been advised by many 
 friends to take a commission, but as he knew 
 nothing of soldiering he would not hear of it. 
 However, after some months of training he had 
 become convinced that he would be more useful 
 as an officer, and applied for a commission. His 
 greatest friend, F. G. Salter --the ' Frdk.' 
 mentioned so often in the letters had enlisted 
 at the same time. They were at Epsom together, 
 took their commissions in the Rifle Brigade at 
 the same time, and went out to France together. 
 They had been at school together from the age 
 of nine, and were up at Oxford at the same time. 
 It was a bitter disappointment to my husband 
 that he and Frdk. were not attached to the same 
 battalion when they got to France, but when, 
 a few weeks later, the latter was seriously wounded 
 and returned to England unfit for active service 
 my husband felt it a real relief, as he wrote to me, 
 that his life was safe. 
 
 He had already had one disappointment on 
 getting his commission. A close friend of Epsom 
 days, J. H. Vaughan, who had applied for a com- 
 mission at the same time and for the same regiment, 
 
 xi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 had not been gazetted to the Rifle Brigade, but to 
 the Royal Inn skilling Fusil : ers. 
 
 Robert was gazetted to the 5th battalion The 
 Rifle Brgade on May 14, 1915 (the i3th anniversary 
 of our wedding day). He went down to the Isle 
 of Sheppey a few days later, and was again lucky 
 in getting a pleasant place where he could be 
 billeted, and where I joined him. We were 
 there until November 18, 1915, when he went out 
 to France. 
 
 The letters tell the rest of his military career 
 up to April 9, 1917, and the following letter 
 completes it. It is from Captain Spurling : 
 
 * DEAR MRS VERNEDE, 
 
 'You will before this have had the official 
 notification that your husband died of wounds 
 on the morning of the gth between the First Aid 
 Station and Dressing Station. It is with the 
 greatest regret that I have to report his death, 
 as we all admired him immensely, and although 
 senior to me both in age and term of service, never 
 for a second made me feel it. 
 
 ' He was in charge of his platoon on our advance 
 and went forward with a Yorkshire officer, who 
 was in charge of the Coy. on his right, with his 
 Sgt. and Cpl. and a couple of his men, and as far 
 as I can gather, came right on top of an enemy 
 machine gun and was very seriously wounded. 
 His men got him back to the Aid Station, but he 
 
 xii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 did not survive the journey on from there. 
 
 ' I did not see him personally after he was hit, 
 but his Corporal, who looked after him, said his last 
 words to him were : " Send my love to my wife." 
 
 ' Please accept my sincerest sympathy with you 
 both from myself and his brother officers in your 
 irreparable loss. 
 
 ' Always ready to help and most thoughtful for 
 others, he will indeed be a great loss to us. In 
 my opinion he should have had command of a 
 company long ago, but joined us just after pro- 
 motions had been made. 
 
 ' His grave is in the French cemetery of Lechelle, 
 and yesterday we put up a new cross, and put 
 stones round the grave and planted out a large 
 bowl of daffodil bulbs which we had flowering in the 
 mess when we were here together some days ago.' 
 
 Robert was decidedly French in appearance 
 very dark, with an oval face and the most 
 beautiful smile I have ever seen. His voice was 
 low and soft and peculiarly pleasant; it was in 
 its way a counterpart of the ease which char- 
 acterised all his physical actions, and I think 
 reflected his mental outlook too. Every child 
 and every animal loved him. 
 
 The youthfulness of his appearance was quite 
 extraordinary, and we had many amusing episodes 
 from it. I remember once while on a short walk- 
 ing tour between the Rhine and the Moselle, we 
 
 xiii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 arrived at a small village one day and stopped at 
 the inn for lunch. Our host came and sat with 
 us, smoking a long pipe and chatting as we ate. 
 He spoke German, and kept on addressing my 
 husband, who did not know the language well. 
 I explained, saying, ' Mein Mann spricht nicht 
 viel Deutsch.' He looked quickly at us both and 
 said in amazement, ' Ihr Herr Gemahl? ' I said 
 ' yes/ He looked again and said with true German 
 curiosity, ' Ah, younger than you are.' I said 
 firmly, No, he was older. But his interest was not to 
 be quenched, and he tried to guess the age, beginning 
 at least ten years too young; when he reached 
 the correct age, he was so utterly amazed that 
 he apparently believed it to be true. I think he 
 felt we should never have invented anything so 
 incredible. 
 
 While we were in Sheppey one of the subalterns 
 having just found out my husband's age, pointed 
 at him in the Mess and said to the rest of the 
 room, ' Guess how old this man is.' Most of 
 them guessed 28 or 29. One man, probably feeling 
 himself very clever, said daringly, '35.' The 
 Subaltern's joy at being able to say 40 was great. 
 I mention these incidents as they explain his 
 jokes about his age, and what he meant when he 
 said that he must be 'ageing visibly' because 
 they guessed him as being 32. 
 
 He was very quiet and reserved with people 
 he did not know well, though a great talker with 
 
 xiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 people who interested him. His second Captain 
 in the Batt. in writing to me said, ' We so 
 often in C Coy. were given, usually most unexpec- 
 tedly, some extraordinarily sound and what must 
 have been well-thought-out ideas with reference 
 to tactical or disciplinary or other Army matters. 1 
 ' Usually most unexpectedly ' exactly describes 
 him. He would sometimes sit, smoking quietly, 
 for nearly half an hour while other people talked, 
 and then suddenly say something which showed 
 that nothing had escaped him. A friend, writing 
 of him, said: 
 
 Two things endure with me. One is that many 
 as his high qualities have been his writing, his 
 physical grace, his tender heart, his good taste, his 
 good humour, and so forth what was so distinctive 
 was the congruity of the whole. Everything fitted 
 in so beautifully that it was a delight to be with 
 him in any mood OP any surroundings. 
 
 The other thing is that silent as he appeared to 
 many, he had the true gift of conversation as so few 
 have. He would tackle a subject, and keeping the 
 other person with him in a manner so different from 
 the mere sayer of bright things and in a manner so 
 much more tender than the Socratic one, he would 
 stick to it until one had reached down to the essence 
 of the problem and felt on surer ground than one 
 had ever done before/ 
 
 I will end this short introduction by quoting 
 the note which appeared after his death in the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Pauline, the magazine of his old school, and which 
 was contributed by his old friend, Mr. G. K. 
 Chesterton : 
 
 ' The death of Robert Ernest Vernede, who 
 fell fighting as a Lieutenant of the Rifle Brigade 
 in the great advance on the Western Front, while 
 so heavy a loss for those of us who loved him, 
 may well be felt by the many more who admired 
 him as something like a gain; an addition or 
 completion to that new and shining company of 
 poets whose patriotism turned them into soldiers, 
 and gave them a life and death more worthy of 
 a legend; those poets who have become poems. 
 He had indeed other strings to his lyre, or labours 
 for his pen; his books of travel and criticism had 
 already revealed his appetite for adventure both 
 material and mental; his novels had embodied 
 romances other than his own. Tragedy itself 
 cannot eclipse the gaiety of that farce in the grand 
 style, The Pursuit oj MY Faviel, the reading 
 of which was like a holiday, not to say a honey- 
 moon. It was perhaps the one work of our genera- 
 tion which was genuinely full of the April foolery 
 of The Wrong Box. But his poetry will neces- 
 sarily be the note that vibrates longest in the 
 memory, especially for those most affected by his 
 end. In the first days of the war we read that 
 address of ' England to the Sea/ lines of which 
 really had what a good critic has called, in another 
 good poet, 'the gesture of magnificence' : 
 
 xvi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 'Say, them, who hast watched through ages that are 
 
 lengthless, 
 Whom have I feared, and when did I forget ? ' 
 
 This alertness, even in a literary sense, was typical 
 of his conduct throughout; he was in .this also 
 early in the field as he was in the battlefield. 
 He went to the war of his own will, when past 
 military age; he went to it a second time when 
 he had been wounded and might easily have been 
 excused. On the second venture he was killed. I 
 write of such things in words altogether weak and un- 
 worthy; but it is at least natural to me to be writing 
 them in the Pauline, for, though I am proud to 
 think our friendship was never broken, it is as a 
 Pauline that I still picture him most vividly. 
 Many personal accidents accentuate the feeling; 
 not least the fact that he always remained, even 
 in face and figure, almost startlingly young. There 
 went with this the paradox of a considerable 
 maturity of mind, even in boyhood; a maturity 
 so tranquil and, as it were, so solitary as to be the 
 very opposite of priggishness. He had a curious 
 intellectual independence; I remember him main- 
 taining, in our little debating club, that Shakespeare 
 was overrated; not in the least impudently or 
 with any foreshadowing of a Shavian pose, but 
 rather like a conscientious student with a piece 
 of Greek of which he could not make sense. He 
 was too good a man of letters not to have learnt 
 better afterwards; but the thing had a touch of 
 B xv ii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 intangible isolation that surprised the gregarious 
 mind of boyhood. He had in everything, even 
 in his very appearance, something that can only 
 be called distinction; something that might be 
 called, in the finer sense, race. This was perhaps 
 the only thing about him, except his name and 
 his critical temper, that suggested something 
 French. I remember his passing a polished and 
 almost Meredithian epigram to me in class : it 
 was, I regret to say, an unfriendly reflection on 
 the French master, and even on the French nation 
 in his person; but I remember thinking, even at 
 the time, that it was rather a French thing to do. 
 There was a certain noble contradiction in his 
 life and death that there was also in his very 
 bearing and bodily habit. No man could look 
 more lazy and no man was more active, even 
 physically active. He would move as swiftly as 
 a leopard from something like sleep to something 
 too unexpected to be called gymnastics. It was 
 so that he passed from the English country life 
 he loved so much, with its gardening and dreaming, 
 to an ambush and a German gun. In the lines 
 called 'Before the Assault/ perhaps the finest of 
 his poems, he showed how clear a vision he carried 
 with him of the meaning of all this agony and the 
 mystery of his own death. No printed controversy 
 or political eloquence could put more logically, 
 let alone more poetically, the higher pacifism which 
 is now resolute to dry up at the fountainhead 
 xviii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the bitter waters of the dynastic wars, than the 
 four lines that run : 
 
 ' Then to our children there shall be no handing 
 
 Of fates so vain, of passions so abhorr'd 
 
 But Peace . . . the Peace which passeth understanding . . . 
 Not in our time . . . but in their time, O Lord.' 
 
 The last phrase, which has the force of an epigram, 
 has also the dignity of an epitaph; and its truth 
 will remain.' 
 
 C. H. VERNEDE. 
 
 THE PAPER MILL, 
 
 STANDON, HERTS. 
 
 August, 1917. 
 
IN MEMORIAM 
 ROBERT ERNEST VERN^DE 
 
 RIFLE BRIGADE 
 
 Died of wounds in France 
 April 9, 1917. 
 
 ' Unversed in war/ but not unskilled of pen, 
 You who heard England calling to the sea, 
 Who knew the things that keep us great and free, 
 Who felt Right's cause with Honour amongst men, 
 Mercy and Truth, had given the heart of ten 
 To those who fought tho' death alone was fee, 
 You who bade all the fallen at rest to be 
 Seeing the end they fell for was in ken- 
 Peace and the power to live as no man's slave, 
 Secure from tyranny of the War-Lord's hell; 
 Sleep ! for the dream you dreamed shall yet 
 
 be true; 
 
 You gave your best to her whose best to you 
 Was given; your prayer is answered, from your 
 
 grave 
 Sounds out ' I died for England, All is well.' 
 
 H. D. RAWNSLEY. 
 
Letters to His Wife 
 
 FOLKESTONE, November 18, 1915. 
 
 Somewhere at Folkestone, in the dark, the train 
 having stopped for about an hour and a half. It 
 is now 5.30 p.m. H. 1 and I have eaten a tea of 
 tongue sandwiches and brandy and water. F. 2 
 and A. 3 are asleep. It is much warmer and drizz- 
 ling. 8 o'clock just starting for pier ! 
 
 SOMEWHERE, Friday, November 19. 
 
 This is written at 10.30 a.m. in a small cafe 
 where the subaltern draft is drinking coffee and 
 writing after an extremely prolonged crossing. 
 We got across by 10 p.m. Hideous wind blowing 
 crowded boat and lingered on the quay till 
 1.15 a.m. when we got a train as far as this, which 
 is a base camp among the sand dunes, which we 
 reached about 2.30 (to-day), finally getting to bed 
 on the ground in tents with some dished- out Army 
 blankets at 4.30. It really was very amusing, 
 
 1 2nd Lieut. R. E. T. Huddart, The Rifle Brigade, killed in 
 action, 3oth June, 1916. 
 
 2 2nd Lieut. F. G. Salter, The Rifle Brigade. See intro. 
 duction. 
 
 3 2nd Lieut. G. H. G. Anderson, M.C., The Rifle Brigade. 
 See p. 151. 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 though, and more 'characteristic' than anything 
 I have struck. Jolly cold and freezing all round. 
 We aren't a bit settled for writing, but I think we 
 are here for a few days anyway, and have, in fact, 
 arranged to mess together at a restaurant at five fr. 
 a day. These youths are very pleasant, and if F. 
 and I can get in the same Bn. (with H. and A. 
 perhaps) it will be very well. 
 
 Address doubtful, and will probably change 
 before you reply to this. 
 
 Saturday, November 20. 
 
 (Written on hotel paper headed GRANDE PLACE A 
 ETAPLES, PAS DE CALAIS, but erased.) 
 
 Still at Base camp, not knowing when we move 
 on. We mess together, the nine of us, in the Railway 
 Buffet, not at all bad, and share two tents, jolly 
 cauld. It freezes at night and thaws slightly by 
 day, but in my valise last night I was pretty warm 
 and F. never slept better. We are near the sea, 
 among the sand dunes and pines, very nice winter 
 country because it's not wet or muddy. This 
 cafe pen makes me write like F. I hope you will 
 be able to read it. 
 
 This morning we marched out a couple of miles 
 and threw a bomb or two and inarched back again : 
 lecture this afternoon. 
 
 This altogether is rather a halfway house sort of 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 place and one feels rather strayed on the passage; 
 and not knowing at what moment one will move on 
 is rather annoying, but it's not without humour. 
 I told you, didn't I, that we had the pleasure of 
 carrying our own valises several times for some 
 distance. We left them under cover eventually 
 at the station on a seat, but when they were brought 
 up by the transport they had been dragged through 
 pools of water. I should have liked to give the 
 transport fifty days C.B. 
 
 Till we get to the trenches I can't give you a 
 proper address and it's no good trying to settle 
 down to write a proper letter because I can't in 
 this slack sort of hustle. 
 
 Sunday, November 21. 
 
 We haven't been posted yet. Last night was 
 bitly cold; we shaved in our one tin between 5 
 and 8 a.m. Roll call at 10, after which F., H., A., 
 and I went for a walk to a place called Flecie, 
 where we lunched in the Inn by a nice hot stove, 
 and were swindled into paying four frcs. for it by a 
 stout old Frenchwoman without shame. Never 
 in her life, I should say, had she had two frcs. before 
 for such a dejeuner, and these things are not 
 calculated to make a lasting entente. The village 
 where we lunched was filled with a Canadian 
 ammunition column run by a Major from Montreal 
 
 3 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 with whom we chatted. He and his officers were 
 billeted at the chateau belonging to Count some- 
 body and seemed very pleased with themselves 
 nice men. 
 
 Still very fit and go about in my fur all day. 
 F. wears nothing and looks like an icicle. Appar- 
 ently there is no chance of arranging our Bn., so if 
 F. and I get together it will be pure luck. We 
 would like H. and A. as well. 
 
 This is written in part of a hut where the men 
 are singing, one small end being reserved for 
 officers, of whom there are now hundreds here 
 why, nobody knows. The tent is a grisly squash, 
 and I have not washed yet, to speak of. I made 
 tea there about an hour ago in my canteen, which 
 seems to go well. Several Epsomites here. 
 
 Monday, November 22. 
 
 We have just returned from a lecture on sand- 
 bags, not bad, by a Major who this morning took 
 us in Battalion Drill of pre-Zulu days and then told 
 off most of the officers on parade (all the Rifle 
 Brigade except F.) for not appearing in Sam 
 Brownes. How to win the War? We are a rum 
 folk. 
 
 The routine at this place seems to remain the 
 same parade in the morning, lecture in the after- 
 noon. Most of the officers, we were told, were to 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 be posted to-day, but only a few to the front, which 
 leaves things as vague as ever. Meanwhile we are 
 not given rations and have to feed ourselves at 
 the rate of about nine francs a day. However, I was 
 warm last night, in spite of a fairly hard frost, 
 which looks well for the future. We all hope we 
 shall get away from here, as it is pigging it without 
 any necessity. I mean to get a bath to-night if 
 it's possible. The worst of the place is the nowhere 
 to sit and general overcrowding. It's either this 
 (Y.M.C.A. Hut) or a cafe, which latter costs money. 
 Frdk. is reading Henry James on a stiff chair in 
 a very bad light. I am going to find a bath. 
 
 November 23. 
 
 It's begun to be misty moisty (5.30 p.m.) and 
 
 we have just heard that and are posted 
 
 to another Bn. and go off at 3.30 a.m. to-morrow 
 morning, and the rest of us are likely to go at much 
 the same time elsewhere. That, however, may be 
 the usual rumour, and I will keep this till the last 
 mo. and then write on envelope or somewhere 
 probable address, and you must write quick to 
 me. 
 
 I am much afraid that F. and I won't get 
 together, but you never know. 
 
 24. Am appointed and go off to-night. Of course 
 F. and H. are in the 2nd. Never mind. 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 November 24. 
 
 We had such a night officers being shouted 
 for and going off at all hours; rain at intervals 
 coming into the tent; F. and H. departing at 2.30 
 a.m., ourselves at 5.30, as far as the railway siding, 
 when it was discovered gradually that the train 
 would not be in till 8 o'clock. So we went off and 
 routed till we roused a Cafe there to give us break- 
 fast. Since then we have travelled through various 
 places for about six hours, finally being turned 
 out here to change trains at 4 p.m. We have 
 therefore had lunch and shaved in the kitchen of 
 the Cafe Vasseur quite a friendly Inn, where I 
 write. We don't in the least know whether we 
 shall arrive at the Bn. and the trenches to-night 
 or not. 
 
 Just off to train must finish later. 
 
 9 p.m. Have arrived been posted to C Coy. 
 and had dinner. But first of all I've got what 
 you will think good news, I expect, which is that 
 the Bn. is out of the trenches altogether for 
 a month, taking a rest, so that for that period you 
 need not worry yourself one little bit. Personally, 
 I think I shall find resting in the Army out here 
 rather a nuisance. 
 
 There are about seven officers to the Coy., and we 
 are billetted together in a farm-house, moderately 
 dirty, in a village which I have not seen yet as we 
 only walked in in the dark; but there is much mud. 
 
 6 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 25. We changed our billets this morning and 
 are now in a village four miles away from the other 
 four in a room in a picturesque enough farm-house, 
 with its pond and farmyard in the middle, the 
 house and out buildings built round it in a quad- 
 rangle. The men are in the out buildings, in straw, 
 not at all uncomfortable, I should say. We sleep 
 on the floor in empty rooms. I would rather have 
 gone into the trenches, as here, again, one has the 
 outsider's feeling, the others having all done it 
 except oneself. 
 
 Still November 25. 
 
 There is nothing doing to-day, and one of us 
 is 'in billets' while the rest are out, and that happens 
 to be me, so I may as well chat, though I don't 
 think there is much to tell here. Apparently the 
 time here is going to be very much the same as at 
 Minster, and except that I have to censor my 
 platoon (No I2's) letters, I don't expect to find 
 it very amusing. Making a whole circle of entirely 
 new acquaintances at this time does not add to 
 the amenities of war, and not having got with 
 F. still annoys. I expect I shall grouse for some 
 little time but you must not mind that. 
 
 I haven't seen the village yet, but they say 
 there is not a shop in it even to buy matches 
 at. Luckily I got a rather poor pipe lighter in 
 
 7 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Etaples, with which practice will no doubt make 
 perfect. 
 
 The mess food in the middle of these excellent 
 French housewives is cooked apparently by Army 
 cooks and resembles it. (Grouse.) 
 
 I might possibly get time, but doubt it, to finish 
 off some poems. 
 
 26. Very cheery to-day nice and bright. 
 People not bad. Send me some socks and a good 
 towel when you can. 
 
 November 28, 1915. 
 
 The time passes in a manner neither pleasant 
 nor unpleasant, but simply of no particular interest 
 to me, I suppose because one has no personal 
 control of things, which never did suit me. It 
 is freezing pretty hard, and I should think there 
 would be skating if such things were to be done. 
 Instead we spend our days (except Sunday, to-day, 
 when there is nothing doing) as follows : 
 
 6.30 a.m. Rise. (Horrible.) 
 
 7.30. Breakfast. (Porridge and bacon and 
 eggs dryly cooked.) 
 
 8.30-9.30. Squad drill with the sergeant-major. 
 
 10-10.45. Parade with our platoons for musketry 
 practice. 
 
 H-I2. Sergeant-major again. 
 
 12.30. Lunch. 
 
 After lunch we are supposed to supervise our 
 8 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 platoons at some form of exercise, such as cross 
 country running, football, etc. 
 
 Football, if you please, is compulsory for the 
 officers, so yesterday you might have seen me 
 playing sokker for the first time in my life at the 
 age of 40 with men who really play it quite well, 
 and me not even knowing the rules. It's very 
 absurd : however, being fairly nimble I don't 
 think I made so considerable a fool of myself as 
 I might have done, and anyhow, the day before 
 I found I could easily outrun most, if not all, of 
 my platoon, with the possible exception of the 
 platoon sergeant a nice man and a great athlete. 
 Most of the elderly men (of over 34 !) simply give 
 up and have to be coerced. 
 
 I suppose I am imagined to be about 28, and 
 I think I shall not reveal the truth this time, as I 
 don't fancy elderly subalterns are much appreciated. 
 
 I imagine this Bn. represents typical Regular 
 Army, as far as you can get it now, and is, so far, 
 more interesting than what one has seen, but I 
 do think the whole thing is too undemocratic, 
 and distinctions of rank demoralise human rela- 
 tions. I do hope Frdk. is not too much revolted 
 by it and hasn't been forced to play sokker. I 
 expect, however, that he is in the trenches, and 
 I wish this Bn. had been. 
 
 This is all very stodgy, but that's what I become, 
 you know, when I've got up too early in the morn- 
 ing and my soul isn't my own, so to speak. 
 
 9 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 November 30. 
 
 The tiresome thing is that if you sit near the 
 fire here you can't see to write; and if you sit away 
 from it, you are frozen. Not that there is any news. 
 I'm very much afraid that I shan't get any verses 
 done. If I had the proper concentration, I might, 
 but there are seven people strewed about the room 
 at most times, one lamp (without a shade) and 
 N.C.O.'s popping in at intervals. 
 
 The men are all very grousy about their rest, 
 and certainly I have not run about more since 
 joining the Army all the morning from 8.30 and 
 a football match or run in the afternoon. I joined 
 the riding school party this afternoon and gal- 
 lopped about quite happily bare-backed. Half 
 of them can't ride at all. 
 
 I think for a youth this would all be great fun 
 though you mustn't think I'm having at all a 
 bad time. 
 
 December i. 
 
 I have just got my first letters from you. I 
 can't answer them properly to-night. Everything 
 is going on all right. These people are very 
 pleasant and I dare say I shall even find some real 
 friends. 
 
 10 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 December 3. 
 
 The deerskin waistcoat from L. 1 has arrived 
 and is fearfully nice. I put it on and then ran two 
 miles, without stopping, with my platoon with 
 that and the other one on so got very hot. I 
 have written to L. 
 
 I have just re-read your letters in my valise 
 after a hot bath following the run. That sounds 
 luxurious, doesn't it? 
 
 Don't bother to send papers. We get them 
 regularly in the mess only a day late, and none 
 too much time to read them. 
 
 I hear another Bn. has also come out of the 
 trenches for a rest, so Frdk. is out of it too. We 
 are pretty sure to be here for another fortnight 
 at least. 
 
 I am just beginning to know my platoon. Have 
 two very good sergeants. One of them beat me by 
 a little in the two mile run to-day, but I had too 
 many clothes on, and two miles is too short anyhow. 
 
 Yesterday we took the Coy. for a route march 
 to a town seven miles off, where they could buy 
 cigarettes and things it's a great grievance that 
 they can't get anything here. A lovely day. On 
 the way back one of the other subalterns and I 
 stopped at another village where we had to attend 
 a lecture on gas attacks, so lunched there before 
 the lecture excellent lunch of five courses (at 
 
 1 Miss Lily Player, a cousin. 
 C II 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 2.30 p.m., after hours) served in about five minutes 
 of our arrival. The French are good at that sort 
 of thing. Then the lecture, which I retailed to 
 my platoon this morning. 
 Very muggy and rainy to-day. 
 
 1. Gave gas lecture. 
 
 2. Listened to musketry lecture. 
 
 3. Lecture on treatment of frost-bite. 
 
 4. Two miles run with platoon. 
 
 All very practical, I think, but rather too much 
 of it. 
 
 What shall I give to my platoon at Christmas? 
 I think they have rather a thin time of extras 
 and accommodation; though well-fed otherwise. 
 Officers ought to fare like the men, I do believe, 
 in spite of the arguments against it. Here they 
 harolly can wash, for instance; or do anything in 
 comfort. 
 
 This is our billet 
 
 farm fious e 
 
 We are in the farm-house men all round in 
 barns and cow-houses the centre a lively, noisy 
 manury farm-yard with a pond in it and every 
 variety of turkey, goose, duck, hen, pig, cow, 
 
 12 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 horse, and dog gobbling round. It is quite pictur- 
 esque. The farmer very fat. I find myself quite 
 fluent with my French, except occasionally. 
 
 December 5. 
 
 I don't seem able to get at the poems. To-day 
 being Sunday, I thought I would, but have been 
 hoicked out for revolver practice, making lists of 
 drafts of men, and watching a football match, 
 which C Coy., which is the best in the Bn., won 
 easily. I haven't yet had much to do with my 
 platoon, owing to these other parades, but shall 
 try to chat with the men, whom I'm only beginning 
 to know by name. 
 
 I enclose Frdk's letter, from which you will see 
 that he seems contented with his lot, which I'm 
 glad of. 
 
 This is only a scrap late at night. Another route- 
 march to-morrow, and, I believe, an inspection 
 by French the next day. 
 
 December 9. 
 
 It has been disgustingly wet to-day and we 
 spent it mostly in a barn much worse than ours, 
 giving short lectures to the men on all sorts of 
 
 13 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 things. I didn't give any, being in charge, but 
 put on platoon sergeants, who start with great 
 zeal and suddenly stop at the end of two minutes, 
 having exhausted all their eloquence. I think 
 practice in smoke helmets is what the men hate 
 most; the things make you feel choked and sick 
 for some minutes from the chemicals inside, and 
 they would probably all much prefer to be gassed 
 some weeks hence to wearing them now. 
 
 I sleep most comfortably in my valise. Would 
 it interest you to know that it's rather the thing 
 when one comes in at the end of the day to change 
 into gum boots, which, with woolly soles inside, 
 are most comfortable as evening dress? I'm in 
 them now. 
 
 Yesterday at a football match a little man 
 a Rifleman whom I didn't know from Adam, 
 came up and told me he had been in the digging 
 party at Warden with me, and has been out three 
 months : we discussed old acquaintances, and he 
 was most friendly, though I don't know his name 
 now. I'm very bad at names. 
 
 It is far more interesting here than at Epsom 
 or Minster. With these people and methods the 
 work gets done, and it is, for the time being, quite 
 reasonably hard work and not too stupid. 
 
 Now I must close, hoping this finds you in the 
 pink, as it leaves me. Have I told you that ex- 
 pression, which occurs in two out of three letters 
 from the men? 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 December 12. 
 
 Your letters nearly always come in exactly at 
 tea-time, which is right, as one can set and read 
 them at once. 
 
 The last two days have been slopping. We 
 fell in at 8.45 for a route march and inspection 
 by General Plumer, and before we started were 
 dripped by a regular thunderstorm. Then we 
 meandered about for three hours before finding 
 the General by the side of the road, where we 
 splashed past him, my job consisting in giving 
 'Eyes left' at the critical moment, which I did 
 without being prostrated with fright. But these 
 smart inspections seem out of place in the middle 
 of war. I think the whole Brigade marched past, 
 if not the whole Division. In the afternoon watched 
 a football match in several hailstorms. The 
 R.B.'s ended by winning the Divisional final, 
 having beaten Londons, Buffs, and Royal Fusiliers 
 easily. We are going to have a cross country 
 run on Tuesday, and I'm afraid my platoon will 
 not win, as it has rather a tail in the running 
 line. 
 
 To-day being the Sabbath Day, I'm doing 
 nothing, and don't propose to. Fine and cold. 
 
 I continue to like my sergeants, but find it 
 rather a bore and very absurd to have to lecture 
 on subjects of which I know nothing and have no 
 practical experience. 
 
 15 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 December 13. 
 
 To-day we had a company inter-divisional match 
 which again C Coy. won, and a shooting match 
 for snipers, which the R.B.s won, so the regiment 
 does very well. This afternoon I made my whole 
 platoon run a race round the two mile course, and 
 came in second myself (14 minutes; the first man, 
 Cpl. P., taking 13 J) not so bad for the oldest 
 gentleman present, as it is very hilly. The whole 
 platoon got in under 19 minutes, which beats the 
 time done by other platoons, at present. How 
 we become sporting ! I shall soon be an authority 
 on sokker snips. 
 
 Yesterday afternoon I got M. and I. on to the 
 range and let off a rifle (for the first time) and 
 didn't do so badly, happening to hit the target 
 before either of them. Rifles are less alarming 
 than I imagined, and at any rate I now know how 
 to load them and what a safety catch does useful 
 knowledge in war-time. 
 
 To-morrow I lead forty shivering reinforcements 
 to be gassed at some village near it's rather a 
 sensible idea for accustoming recruits to the thing, 
 but I trust it will not make us all sick. The helmets 
 themselves smell like one o'clock. This is just a 
 short note more perhaps after being gassed 
 to-morrow. 
 
 16 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 December 14. 
 
 I was successfully gassed with my forty men. 
 The gas helmets are a little smelly, but you don't 
 notice the gas to speak of, though it was whizzing 
 out of the cylinder as we passed down the trench. 
 True, we were only about two minutes in it, and 
 I doubt if it was all proper gas, though it smelt 
 beastly later on when I got into some far-borne 
 fumes after the show was over. The worst of it 
 was that it fixed itself on my clothes and now I 
 smell like an operating room full of ether. 
 
 This afternoon I went for a walk with T. 1 He 
 is a very good sort. He is said to be very cool and 
 gallant in the trenches. 
 
 Our weather is distinctly better, frosty at night 
 and quite bright by day. I sleep directly at the 
 foot of a window with the panes nearly all broken, 
 and in direct line with the door, so I ought to be 
 getting very much hardened. 
 
 December 17. 
 
 By latest arrangements we are to be here for 
 Christmas and three or four days after, so I don't 
 suppose the trenches will be reached till 1916 at 
 earliest. 
 
 It's rather quaint in this army how one is 
 
 1 Captain Geoffrey B. Tatham, The Rifle Brigade. 
 17 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 surrounded by inglorious heroes. One of the most 
 troublesome men has a Russian medal for gallantry, 
 and I heard yesterday that another who bags 
 one's cigarettes and things ought to have had the 
 V.C. 
 
 December 19. 
 
 Two letters from you since my last and sweets 
 from Richoux the best chocolates I've tasted 
 from anywhere for ages. 
 
 I've just been appointed Mess President; I'm 
 going to try and amend it by slow degrees. 
 
 I might have become Coy. Bombing Officer, if 
 I had been keen. M. had been appointed and 
 didn't want the job; and I offered to take it but 
 without much keenness, as it means going off on 
 a course and having to learn the whole job in a 
 week, which I detest; also leaving my platoon 
 just when I'm beginning to know it. Otherwise 
 I wouldn't have minded I don't think there's 
 any real choice of risks, and the fact is I don't 
 think I am very brilliantly quick at learning any 
 of these quasi-engineering feats. 
 
 I still greatly think the war will go well, and 
 everybody out here is very cheerful. 
 
 18 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 December 21. 
 
 Not very much time before post goes, and the 
 reason is that I have become O.C. of C Coy. as well 
 as Mess President for at least eight days, as T. 
 has gone on leave and I am the senior subaltern. 
 Consequently you might have seen me on a horse 
 this morning leading the Coy. on a Batt. route 
 march, and I have work and interruptions by the 
 hundred most of it, of course, absolutely novel. 
 I haven't the foggiest idea as to whether I have 
 the unfortunate Riflemen (who appear before 
 me on charges) shot or admonished, and in vain, 
 while in England, I tried to get some one to tell 
 me. However, I ought to learn something in the 
 course of it and cannot do much harm, I imagine, 
 in a rest camp; and if I get strafed, it really doesn't 
 matter. Not my fault if I know nothing about 
 it. Don't worry if I'm short in letters, I really 
 shall be rather busy. 
 
 December 23. . 
 
 Just another line and a half in great haste. I 
 really am rather rushed, for in addition to the 
 ordinary things an O.C. has to do, I have the 
 Christmas dinner to arrange for, and the point 
 is that we must have 200 plates, tables, and dishes 
 for 200, and, if possible, a piano. All these things 
 
 19 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 ought to have been arranged for weeks ago to make 
 sure of them, and were supposed to be, and now 
 not two days at most to go, they are none of them 
 forthcoming; and I send out parties in all direc- 
 tions to beg, borrow, or steal them in a place the 
 size of Puckeridge or smaller. 
 
 Also I had to send off I. to inspect the trenches 
 we go into in the New Year for two days and 
 a servant who almost declined to go, as it's not 
 much fun being in the mire and shot at for two 
 days just before Christmas merely as a fatigue. 
 Otherwise we are going all right no thanks to me, 
 as the thing runs very smoothly, and provided 
 I assume an air which is unjustified, they seem 
 to imagine that somebody really is in command. 
 
 Spent half an hour last night in vain trying 
 to persuade the farmer and farmeress to lend us 
 their crockery for the men but not they. If 
 I were fluent enough to be daring in French it 
 might possibly have been done; but they are not 
 very generous, I fancy. 
 
 Just as I had finished your Richoux sweets 
 some more of them came from O. H. 1 much to 
 the pleasure of the mess, which likes them. 
 
 I suppose I shall revert to Subaltern and the 
 ordinary course next week meanwhile you won't 
 mind short letters, will you? 
 
 Christmas Day is going to consist of a vast 
 
 1 Oscar Hilton, M.D., of North-wood, an old school and Oxford 
 friend. 
 
 2O 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 dinner for the men ducks and pork and plum 
 puddings, and oranges and beer, followed by a 
 concert, all in a barn. 
 
 The R.B.s have won every competition in the 
 Division and so are highly pleased with themselves. 
 
 December 24. 
 
 This is the third day I have had no letter from 
 you, but I know it's not just that you haven't 
 written, because nobody else has had any letters 
 either. 
 
 C. has at last got into the nearest town this 
 afternoon, where he is going to buy Chinese lan- 
 terns, candles, and those sort of etcs. I sent the 
 Coy. out this morning by platoons to pick holly, 
 and they seem to have depleted the countryside 
 pretty well. Tables are still a difficulty, and I 
 have commissioned a sergeant and a French- 
 speaking corporal to call on the Cure* and see if 
 he can raise any by his authority. 
 
 There was to have been a field day to-day in 
 which I should have had to lead the Coy. in some 
 intricate attack, but luckily it poured and the 
 thing was put off. Not but what I believe it's 
 quite easy to give orders on these occasions, 
 provided the men are skilled in carrying them 
 out. 
 
 Yesterday I rode over to a lecture at - on 
 the trenches we are to occupy. The lecturer was 
 
 21 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 some Colonel I believe his name was H. If so, 
 he was a youth Frdk. and I were at school with, 
 but I didn't recognise him and the room was too 
 crowded to get close. Heavy rain going back 
 and the animals galloped most of the way. 
 
 There are various changes being made in the 
 Batt. T. will be in command of C Coy. instead 
 of second in command, etc., etc. This all sounds 
 very military, doesn't it ? and other people are 
 mostly desperately keen on their positions. I 
 fear I am too old to have any military ambition; 
 at the same time, it is decidedly more interesting 
 to command than to be commanded so perhaps 
 I had better aim at being a Brigadier, say. 
 
 Boxing Day, 1915. 
 
 After three days of no letters I got five from 
 you on Christmas Day about 6 p.m. and one 
 from my mother, and one from yours. 
 
 I hope you saw V. 1 he seems to have been in 
 luck about Christmas. I've forgotten his Batt. 
 and address, so can't write (I suppose I could, 
 but I haven't). I hope nobody will try to make 
 me learn signalling. 
 
 I feel we don't need a confession of sins at present 
 so much as of our stupidities. Perhaps that comes 
 from seeing all these patient and gallant youths 
 
 1 Lieut. J. H. Vaughan, M.C., Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. See 
 Introduction. 
 
 22 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 about, so cheery in what they all know is for them 
 a daily risk of their lives. 
 
 By the way, the chocolates from L. have arrived. 
 Richoux pack beautifully, and they are the best 
 possible chocolates. 
 
 Now, about Christmas here, which was fairly 
 amusing and will be more so to look back upon, I 
 expect. 
 
 We sent C. into the town, and he brought out 
 on a mess-cart chocolates and crackers and plates 
 and cigarettes, which made a very fine show. 
 The C.Q.M.S. is quite a brilliant decorator, and 
 turned out the barn in great style with masses of 
 greenery, and the lamps hung in festoons with 
 Chinese lanterns between. 
 
 There were Services in the morning and a foot- 
 ball match at 12 won by n platoon of C Coy. 
 and dinner began at 2. The C.O. came round 
 and made a speech, and we gave him port, and all 
 drank to the health of the Coy., and then they 
 set to on pork and geese and plum puddings, and 
 kept it up with a concert till a late hour. Our 
 own dinner didn't arrive till 4 p.m., after much 
 strafing of the servants. At 7 the C Coy. officers 
 had to go round to the Sergeant's Mess, and I had 
 to make a speech and drink half a tumbler of 
 whisky, followed by champagne. They were all 
 cheery. Then we supped off a magnificent pie 
 sent out by T. from the Trinity cook, and at n 
 p.m. the farmeress came and besought me to turn 
 
 23 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 the servant's party out of the kitchen where they 
 were making a frightful row. I routed them out 
 and they sang songs under our windows, and 
 finally retired. Heaven knows how many men 
 turned up at the correct hour at their billets, but 
 I believe drunks and absents are overlooked on 
 Christmas Day. All sorts of officers trotted in 
 at intervals, and on Christ n as Eve we all went 
 round to each other's houses and wished each 
 other well. 
 
 I don't fancy a certain amount of drinking can 
 be helped, and they don't .do much in the ordinary 
 way. I retired to bed at 11.30 and didn't get up 
 till 9 this morning, so had a pretty good sleep. 
 
 We haven't heard definitely when we move. 
 I will write as soon as I can again. 
 
 December 28. 
 
 This will be a sleepy letter, as the Field Day 
 came off to-day, and I spent from 8.30-4.30 leading 
 C Coy. to the attack, and sending orderlies and 
 signallers, and sergeants and subalterns flying in 
 all directions except (probably) the right one. 
 I don't think we did any worse than the other 
 Coys., however; and these sort of attacks always 
 seem a gorgeous mix-up; and on the whole I 
 thought it as easy to be an O.C. as a Rifleman. 
 Now T. has returned from leave and I revert to 
 
 24 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 2nd in command, without, I think, having given 
 myself away too much, and having had some 
 useful practice. 
 
 Got a letter from you on my return, and had a 
 hot bath and shall go to bed in a few minutes. 
 Yesterday we had an alarm that we were to be 
 inspected by Haig (C.-in-C.) but it didn't come off. 
 
 There is still nothing fixed about our move, 
 and even our destination is altered by rumour 
 daily. Sleepy I am. 
 
 December 29. 
 
 Just a line afore I go to bed to tell you that 
 we don't seem to be moving for some days. In- 
 spection by G.O.C. to-morrow. 
 
 December 31. 
 
 I don't think there is much news still none 
 of our departure or of our destination. 
 
 I have just been strafing my servant, who is also 
 the chef, over his cookery, with result that we are 
 getting superb meals as a mess, and he is looking 
 after me individually much better too. He said 
 nobody had criticised his cookery before, and he 
 had cooked for seven years for the Guard's mess. 
 I said I had no doubt that he was a cordon bleu, 
 but some evidence of it must be forthcoming. 
 
 25 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Still the Village. January 3, 1916. 
 
 I came back from a long route march through 
 much mud, followed by a long lecture on some 
 new trenches, to find a letter. 
 
 Of course we are bound to be in the trenches 
 pretty soon now, but that's what we came for; 
 and I believe the R.B.s are expected to hold the 
 least choice ones as a rule. Even so, the risks 
 are not much more or less, I suppose. 
 
 Did I tell you we were dealt out steel helmets a 
 week ago to wear in the trenches frightfully heavy 
 but supposed to be good against shrapnel. 
 
 January 5. 
 
 This is a beautiful morning and I hope is going 
 to be fine for our move. The prospect of going 
 into the trenches is still rather unreal and dream- 
 like, but I suppose one will know about it at no 
 very distant date. I wish I had finished some 
 more poems. Perhaps when one gets into rest 
 billets behind the lines there will be rather more 
 time. I don't know. There are many things to 
 learn and one has to be as wide awake as possible, 
 and writing pomes makes one rather absent- 
 minded. Rather a sad accident has happened in 
 my platoon one of the best riflemen in it, an 
 old soldier (as soldiers go now) went for an escapade 
 
 26 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 at night with another man, and in the dark they 
 both fell over a chalk pit and my man was killed, 
 while the other broke his shoulder. I used to have 
 him out to show the recruits how to handle a rifle, 
 and I should think he was worth any two at rapid 
 fire. 
 
 There's not much news. We've been routing 
 about quite energetically and I think the men 
 must be pretty fit. I am. 
 
 January 6, 1916. Another place in France. 
 
 I got two letters before moving. I was rejoiced 
 to hear that you were in the pink as this leaves 
 me at present, seated on my valise on the muddy 
 floor of a small hut at which we arrived at 6 a.m. 
 this morning, having started at 7 p.m. the night 
 before. It's not the trenches yet, but may be 
 when you get this. 
 
 The start from the rest billet was rather pictur- 
 esque. A dark starry night, the Batt. in fours 
 on the muddy road, singing and shouting good- 
 byes to the villagers, captains on horses, and pack 
 animals jogging behind down the endless French 
 avenues. We entrained about seven miles away 
 sat rather thick in a beestje carriage, where I 
 fell asleep about six times and was joggled awake 
 by the sudden way they brake the French trains 
 when they are going at top speed. The men on 
 D 27 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 trucks on the floor, which I fancy was quite as 
 comfortable as the seats we were on. Then dis- 
 mounted at a place that has been shelled and still 
 is at intervals, tramped through heaps of filthy 
 streets, very dark and muddy, but the sky between 
 all quivering with light from the Very lights on 
 the not very distant Front. Not much noise of 
 guns, which seems to go on mostly by day. The 
 effect was (when we got into the open country) 
 of the fireworks at Henley seen across a flat land 
 like the Sheppey marshes. Constant passing of 
 horses and waggons and troops on the road; but 
 only an hour before we got to this place of liquid 
 mud, where we slept on the floor (after some cocoa) 
 until about n a.m., when we had breakfast. I 
 was very glad of my fur lining as our valises did 
 not arrive until after breakfast, and we slept as 
 we were. I slept very soundly myself and wasn't 
 really cold, or if I was I didn't know it. 
 
 Apparently we shall continue to mess in the 
 trenches, which are said to be fairly dry. Those 
 we were to have gone into were waist-deep in 
 parts and so isolated that in the fire trench we 
 should have had to get meals when we could by 
 ourselves. So that is an improvement. 
 
 It's quite an animated scene outside mule 
 carts and horse carts and men on horses and mules 
 all splashing about in the mud under a very sodden 
 sky, which looks as if it were going to rain buckets 
 shortly. 
 
 28 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 I was going into the nearest town for the after- 
 noon with T., but the order allowing officers off 
 has been cancelled, so I'm staying here instead, 
 a-scribbling to you. 
 
 It's absurd the amount of things one carries 
 on the march. I had a pack and two haversacks, 
 glasses, revolver, smoke helmet, and goggles (you're 
 supposed to carry two) and map case all strung 
 about me; and a steel helmet ought also to have 
 been slung to the pack, but ours went by mess- 
 cart. I walked in my long boots and changed 
 into my rubber boots. 
 
 Getting dark and tea beginning to arrive. 
 
 DANS LES TRANCHES. January g, 1916. (Sunday.) 
 
 I got two letters from you last night, so that 
 the trenches are not so bad as they might be. I 
 marched the Coy. up to the trenches with L, as 
 T. went up earlier in the day to prospect. Very 
 interesting along a dull, ugly road "that is already 
 historic, I suppose, through towns that have become 
 famous through being reduced to dust. In one 
 of these all of us were dealt out gum-boots, thigh- 
 high and wet through, which is what happens in 
 the Army when the object is that you shall have 
 dry feet, but I fancy there is the excuse that there 
 aren't enough of them, and one Batt. has to get 
 straight into those left behind by the Batt. that 
 
 29 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 has gone out. By this time it was dark and safe 
 to march through the shelled area, which we did, 
 wading through pools of mud and water, and holes 
 eminently calculated to sprain your ankle. The 
 Coy. ahead had one man shot through the leg 
 by a stray bullet, but we had (and have) no casual- 
 ties so far. Since arriving about 7 o'clock p.m. 
 on the 7th I have had about six hours' sleep in 48 
 hours not enough. Some of the men have had 
 less, I fancy, and that in mud holes : unavoidable. 
 
 The difference from what one expected in the 
 trenches is that these are so filthy and dilapidated- 
 looking; not regular trenches and nicely arranged 
 barbed wire as in Sheppey, but crumbled up 
 barricades in the middle of what looks like an 
 earthquake combined with a snowslide, with 
 ancient rusty scraps of wire hanging in festoons 
 here and there, but pretty effective nevertheless. 
 Everything gets blown up at intervals and inex- 
 tricably mixed, clothes and tins and dug-outs 
 and every mortal thing you can imagine. Other- 
 wise they are roomier than anything at Sheppey. 
 Since arriving I've seen almost all the things one 
 reads of aeroplanes being shelled in every direc- 
 tion, rifle fire, and crater mines being blown up 
 and all the rest of it, except an attack or heavy 
 shelling of our lines, I'm glad to say. 
 
 The first night and day were fairly peaceful 
 though our R.E. (a Canadian) wrecked the German 
 mines late in the evening, and the earth shook, and 
 
 30 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 we all stood to in case a crater was formed and had 
 to be occupied. But it wasn't. 
 
 To-day, being Sunday, opened rather more 
 characteristically, I suppose. Having retired to 
 bed at 2 a.m. in a sort of little dug-out, 2 ft. 6 high 
 room for one with one's legs sticking out a trifle 
 I was hauled out at 5 a.m. because the wind 
 had changed and a gas attack was possible. We 
 stood about in gusts of rain till 7 a.m. when I again 
 retired to bed and was wakened by the Boches 
 sending over rifle grenades, nasty buzzing things 
 that make a noise like an enormous hornet, and I 
 found I. just outside, ducking because he expected 
 one on his head. They sent over twenty (you can 
 see them coming and dodge if you have room) 
 but did no damage, and I had breakfast and went 
 on duty from 10 a.m. 2 p.m. During this you trot 
 round and chat with the sentries and take an 
 occasional glimpse in a safe direction and listen 
 to the patter of bullets and find out if anybody 
 has heard or noticed anything, and so on. 
 
 Meanwhile our artillery started shelling the 
 Boche; their F.O.O. coming into our front line 
 to get the range, and they began to shell back. 
 This went on for some time, at the end of which 
 I went to see if the platoon was rubbing in anti- frost 
 bite, whereupon a biggish shell fell about 15 yds. away 
 and I had to retire into a very safe place we have, 
 with one shoe off and one shoe on, so to speak. 
 
 Then back to lunch, and now I'm off, and writing 
 31 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 to you, but still exceedingly sleepy; while guns 
 go on overhead, but not much at hand. 
 
 The men seem wonderfully cheerful and good- 
 natured about everything; but, of course, childishly 
 foolish in some ways. They will fish water out of 
 some filthy puddle, throw away their socks and 
 do anything the fancy takes them that is reckless. 
 
 The mud is difficult to exaggerate. I am crusted 
 with it already, and have a large rent in the seat 
 of my breeks, and haven't washed. Otherwise, 
 I don't think they're as bad as 1 expected, though 
 there are faint sickly smells and things that take 
 some getting used to. It is extremely interesting 
 in many ways, and I suppose when one becomes 
 experienced one may be some use. I believe T. 
 is extremely good very cool and conscientious 
 and forethoughtful, and I doubt if we could have 
 a better captain. 
 
 It's quaint dodging by oneself at night round 
 dangerous corners and chatting with sentries you 
 don't know and can't see about nothing in par- 
 ticular. Last night three cats were playing about 
 in front of our parapet in the moonlight. 
 
 By the time you get this we shall probably be 
 out again in reserve and luxury; so picture it all 
 over for the time being when you get it. I haven't 
 been unpleasantly cold yet and am in the pink. 
 
 Our cook-house, which is also the servants' 
 dug-out, is opposite our 9x3 mess-room dug-out; 
 and there you see either five servants snoring or 
 
 32 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 the chef sitting over a brazier taking things out 
 of his pockets and dropping them into the sauce- 
 pan for our consumption. He sent up some tea 
 which smelt so violently of dead cats that we 
 couldn't touch it in spite of being very thirsty. 
 Water (pure) is a difficulty. 
 
 Don't worry if letters are delayed. They are 
 erratic, and I may at times be too desperately 
 sleepy to hold a pencil. Explain this to my mother. 
 I'll try and write more when we get into reserve. 
 
 I think I'll try and get a mug of water to wash 
 in and shave now. 
 
 January 10, 1916. 
 
 Just a line to say that I'm safe and well. Also 
 I had six hours' sleep last night, which is a great 
 improvement, and I shall even do some more this 
 afternoon. Nothing happened later yesterday, 
 and to-day has been pretty quiet, and I've been 
 watching German working parties in the distance, 
 and an unknown piece of railway". There must 
 have been something on early to-day, for about 
 7 a.m. a terrific row on our flank waked me and I 
 believe went on for an hour, but I was far too 
 sleepy to take any interest in it. It's a beautiful 
 day. More sleep so I must come to an end. 
 My chief hours are 9.30 p.m. 1.30 a.m. and 9.30 
 a.m. 1.30 p.m. The night part is rather long 
 and dull, though one has some interesting talks. 
 
 33 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 January n or 12 (?) 
 
 Just a line to say that we go out to-night into 
 reserve, which is a perfectly safe place. A certain 
 amount of strafing on both sides going on. I would 
 write more but am overcome with sleep again, 
 having had little last night owing to giving my 
 bed to an officer who came in yesterday. It was 
 too jolly cold to sleep elsewhere. Having a fairly 
 interesting time. Too sleepy for words. 
 
 January 12. 
 
 Here we are in the ruins of a very historic town 
 in some shell-proof cellars, where I even had a 
 sort of bed last night and the time to lie on it. 
 In fact I had 9-10 hours' sleep, and having had 
 practically none the night before (when I was also 
 frozen stiff) I feel distinctly the better for it, and 
 ready to write quite a long letter. I hope I didn't 
 give too bad an impression in my first letter. It's 
 no use pretending they are pleasant, as many 
 people probably console themselves with thinking. 
 It isn't the filth or the wet or want of sleep or 
 general discomfort or chance of getting a bullet 
 if you walk unwarily, that is unpleasant; it is 
 the shells and shells only, and when they say it 
 is a gunner's war, they mean the gunners have all 
 the fun and the infantry all the horrors. There 
 
 34 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 they are, somewhere miles behind, and they open 
 fire when it suits them, more or less on the 
 infantry trenches where, it may be for hours at a 
 time, you squat, not knowing if the next one is 
 coming on top of you or not. There are various 
 noises, of course, which I expect you have seen 
 described : Those I like least so far are i, a sound 
 as of the loudest thunderclap you have ever heard 
 going off in your ears; 2, a noise as of the whole 
 of Harrod's Stores falling in with a sudden crash. 
 I don't think it's just my finnickiness or the novelty 
 of it that makes them alarming : in fact, some 
 people say that the more you've had of them the 
 less you like them. I was standing yesterday 
 morning next a Buff officer who has been buried 
 by a shell and been out since the beginning, and 
 I don't think he liked the shelling that was going 
 on any more than I did. But no doubt some men 
 are better suited for the sort of strain it must be 
 than others. We are said to have had a very light 
 time only three casualties in the Coy. and we 
 are out now for some time. 
 
 I rather think that one can acquire some sort 
 of philosophy about shells in course of time the 
 fact is that it's no good expecting them to hit you. 
 They probably won't, and if they do one knows 
 nothing of it. 
 
 The advantage of being an officer is that you 
 haven't very much time to think about yourself 
 whether you want to or not. 
 
 35 
 
LETTEES TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Without artillery the trenches would seem quite 
 peaceful and pleasant, and it is pleasant to see 
 the old hands going on cooking their dinners 
 stolidly with the shells crashing round, though 
 they can't like them. The recruits seem to have 
 taken their first experiences very well. But then 
 the older N.C.O.s can be very useful in consoling 
 them, and this, I should say, makes for the greater 
 value of the Regular Battalions as compared with 
 the others. 
 
 T. is exceedingly good in the trenches. He 
 barely slept at all and didn't particularly seem 
 to need it that's the thing I shall find it particu- 
 larly difficult to live up to. I never did like the 
 earliest dawn ! 
 
 January 12. (To his Mother.) 
 
 Am at present, and for some time to come, 
 behind the firing line in shell-proof cellars, which 
 one subaltern says he would like to live in for the 
 rest of his life after seeing the trenches. 
 
 Truly, nobody need think the trenches (at any 
 rate the worse ones) anything but disgusting; 
 but there is a great deal of fascination in them, 
 and the men are extraordinarily interesting and 
 good-humoured, and cook under fire; and they 
 get on the whole a worse time than the officers 
 in the ordinary way of accommodation. Our 
 
 36 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 new ones have the advantage of old hands present 
 to back them up, and the disadvantage of having 
 more dangerous trenches to occupy. 
 
 It's all very odd and rather exciting when on 
 duty at night one goes about alone for hours up 
 and down deserted trenches with sounds of firing 
 in all directions and the Boches within listening 
 distance, and flares going up at intervals through 
 mud nearly knee-deep, slipping and sliding in 
 every direction in the dark and not quite certain at 
 first whether one is trotting straight into the 
 German trenches or not. The landscape is ex- 
 ceedingly desolate ruins and shell holes wherever 
 you look and the only cheerful thing is the sun 
 when it appears, and the men, whose cheeriness 
 is unending. 
 
 Still the Cellars. January 13. 
 
 I am sitting in the mess room cellar, which is 
 about 6 x 10 ft. and holds the officers of two Coys. 
 The space is sardiny and the cold icy. The diffi- 
 culty about writing is that there are so many 
 details and so little time to describe them. Last 
 night, for instance, I sat here with the others 
 and we had the Brigade machine gun officer in 
 discussing the position of the guns, and the C.O. 
 and the Adjutant discussing the trenches, and all 
 the officers of A Coy (B. included) chatting and 
 
 37 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 laughing, and I got to bed at 11.30, and had a good 
 sleep till 9. 
 
 To-day I inspected my platoon and then wandered 
 about a ruined place and picked some daphne 
 mezereum and rosemary. To-night at 10 p.m. 
 I take a working party up to the trenches and 
 return about I or 2 a.m. 
 
 told me as we left the trenches that he 
 
 would give anything to be back in Sheppey, and 
 he was one of the youths who was wild to get out. 
 They certainly don't leave many illusions of the 
 Romance of War the more credit to the people 
 who have stuck it a year or more. 
 
 14. Got back safe and sound at about 12 mid- 
 night. There was a high and furious wind blowing 
 most of the time very cold also the chance of 
 being machine-gunned, so the men worked like 
 buffaloes and we got through in no time. 
 
 To-day has been slack and luxurious, sitting 
 over a charcoal brazier in the cellars, eating 
 and dozing. Now we are bound for our rest 
 camp. 
 
 Still the Rest Camp. January 17, 1916. 
 
 I seem to get your letters very regularly, if I 
 don't get one one day, I get two the next. 
 
 The camp is rather dull and cool, but one gets 
 plenty of sleep, which is a good thing. 
 
 38 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Yesterday I did practically nothing but censor 
 letters and inspect the platoon and have a small 
 greasy warm bath. To-day there may be a digging 
 party, but I doubt it. 
 
 January 20. 
 
 1 wrote a small scrap yesterday and must try 
 to make up this time. 
 
 2 hours later. Have been rather hustled after 
 all, inspecting platoon, censoring letters (some of 
 them write a dreadful lot and in any case thirty 
 letters take some time to read through), also 
 writing crime sheets. 
 
 Our shed in which we live is, is as T. said the 
 other day, the sort of place where you might 
 possibly put your garden roller in peace time, 
 and now, by an irony of fate, we have been given 
 a small stove for it, but no fuel, and when we go 
 out and hunt small damp chips of wood, they 
 smoke us out. 
 
 I know my letters aren't very consecutive, but 
 that's mostly an attempt to be too conscientious. 
 If I told you we walked two hours from the trenches 
 to here I suppose it would be giving some sort of 
 information, though very little. 
 
 Since writing I have taken one working party 
 up to the trenches again from 3 p.m. 12 midnight. 
 We went miles and miles in artillery waggons 
 
 39 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 perfectly open springless carts (holding twelve men) 
 which, when the horses gallop, reminded me of 
 being on the elephant in pursuit of the leopard. 
 Your spine just gets bumped to bits. The work 
 is rendered less dull than it might be by the fact 
 that the Boches turn machine guns on you at 
 intervals, when you have to lie in the mud. I'm 
 glad to say we had no casualties, though the Regt. 
 next had eight the same night. 
 
 Coming back I produced a tin of Edinburgh 
 rock; after passing it round my cart we tried to 
 pass it to the one in the rear. It was rather like 
 holding a carrot in front of a donkey's nose. The 
 outrider of the four horses couldn't quite get up, 
 and galloped and galloped his team till he 
 eventually did. Nasty misty moisty night it 
 was. 
 
 January 22, 1916. 
 
 I'm so sorry about Frdk., and I fear he will 
 feel it being knocked out so soon. I hope it won't 
 prove dangerous and that he'll get well slowly. 
 
 The Rifle Brigade seems to have been rather 
 strafed lately. We have had four officer casualties 
 none in C Coy. A Coy. had a bad time on a 
 digging party the night before last. Hullo, must 
 leave for post. 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 REST CAMP. January 22. 
 
 Partly owing to playing Bridge the last few 
 nights, which I can't very well refuse, there being 
 just four of us at present, and partly because the 
 post has taken to going off earlier in the morning, 
 I've rather scrabbed my letters to you, and they 
 have been short if frequent. Now I may as well 
 begin a longer one, though there's not much news. 
 I. and I started on a peaceful country walk this 
 afternoon and had to turn back because the beastly 
 Boches started shelling the road just ahead of us, 
 which was rather unusual cheek at this distance 
 from the firing line. The day before we walked 
 
 in to , a town which is fairly complete for 
 
 these parts, to do some shopping. 
 
 The country is exceedingly flat, prim, dull, and 
 miry camps everywhere, and the roads, which 
 would ordinarily, I suppose, be as deserted as the 
 Ware to Puckeridge road is, almost as crowded 
 as Oxford Street with artillery waggons and limbers, 
 mule-carts, motor-lorries and omnibuses, despatch 
 riders and troops all bustling along through the 
 never-ending mud. You get splashed from head 
 to foot en route, if you walk, but we managed to 
 get lifts both ways (six miles) from motor vans which 
 joggle you along in the dark at a great pace. The 
 town itself is mostly turned into small shops selling 
 tinned fruit to Tommies, and other rubbish; but 
 we had chocolate at quite a decent confectioner's, 
 
 41 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 which has been there evidently from the start, 
 and got back for dinner. 
 
 Sunday Morning. I'm camp orderly officer 
 to-day and have just been the rounds of our camp. 
 There was a frost in the night, and to-day the sun 
 is shining brightly through a slight mist; and I 
 am sitting by the stove in our hut (we've got some 
 fuel for once). 
 
 January 25. 
 
 We're still here till the end of the week anyway, 
 and I'm afraid we're going to do things like Coy. 
 and Batt. drill to improve our discipline, when 
 lots of real work yells to be done. The men haven't 
 all had a bath yet since before going into the 
 trenches and I'm pretty scratchy myself after 
 two hot baths. 
 
 Yesterday I went to a village hard by, and sat 
 in a tub under a hot water douche for about three- 
 quarters of an hour. It was very pleasant. We 
 then had tea buttered buns at a hut rejoicing 
 in the name of the Officers' Club not bad if 
 the buns had been hot, but they weren't ! 
 
 I hope Frdk. is going well. I haven't heard 
 from him yet, and imagine it is a good deal worse 
 than he makes out. Personally, I would rather 
 he didn't come out again, being too good. 
 
 It frosts by night and gets nice and bright about 
 10 o'clock. Much nicer than damp mug. 
 
 42 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Thursday, January 27. 
 
 There is not much news. We are doing stupid 
 things like Battalion Drill and so forth. Yesterday 
 I marched the men eight miles to a bath and back 
 their first since they started from the Rest 
 Village. They also got their first clean shirt. 
 To-day we had a feint alarm at 4.30 a.m., and 
 tumbled out in the dank and dark for one and a 
 half hours in fighting order. Now 6 p.m., have 
 just had my hair cut and here I am writing. 
 
 We expect to go into the trenches the beginning 
 of next week, but don't count on it. No digging 
 parties this week. How is Frdk.? I haven't 
 heard from him. 
 
 January 29. 
 
 I like the handkerchiefs you send. Washing 
 is very fitful. Sometimes my servant does it, and 
 sometimes a neighbouring farmeress.. The results 
 are very shady but it's useful for handkerchiefs 
 and such. My towels get blacker and blacker 
 under his laundering. 
 
 I saw a letter in the Times the other day advo- 
 cating that the sandbags should be coloured instead 
 of white. It would be very difficult to find one 
 that wasn't the colour of the Flanders mud once 
 it has been disembarked. Of course in summer 
 it would take longer. 
 
 43 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 You wanted to know about the rest camp, which 
 I thought I had described. Well, it consists of a 
 large field or series of fields (there being no hedges) 
 churned into mud no grass board walks 18 in. 
 wide through it and huts and tents in rows. We 
 have a hut, and the men huts or tents, according 
 to their luck. 
 
 A broad ditch runs at the bottom of the field 
 and out of that our washing water (and a good 
 deal of the water for our tea, I fancy, and the men's 
 tea) is fetched. Rats run in every direction at 
 night, and some people chase them through the 
 slime with electric torches and sticks. The huts 
 are as at Shurland, only smaller, and mostly with 
 mansard roofs, so that you can only stand upright 
 in the middle. Voila ! I am sitting by myself in 
 ours at present and have been most of the after- 
 noon, T. having gone up to see the new trenches 
 and the others having an afternoon off. 
 
 Sunday. T. came back last night and said the 
 trenches are not so bad as they might be. We 
 shall be there off and on for a fortnight, so you 
 will get rather shorter letters. 
 
 I had a hot bath yesterday in I.'s bath, and just 
 as I was getting in, a gas alert or alarm sounded 
 and all the gas helmets had to be inspected, and 
 as I was the only officer at home, so to speak, I 
 had to bustle through the bath and do them. 
 
 The water inspection is like our experience at 
 the paper mill when the military visited us. Strict 
 
 44 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 orders that the men drink only the water supplied. 
 Practice, to drink out of any shell hole they see. 
 The water supplied isn't enough or often enough. 
 Of course it is nearly always turned into tea, which, 
 with inoculation, I suppose, prevents the conse- 
 quences that might be expected. 
 
 I read an amusing account in the paper of 
 Friday of a visit by seven influential recruiters 
 to the firing line. The spokesman described how 
 they came under shell fire and fled to dug-outs, 
 where they waited hours. But they found the dug- 
 outs dry and airy and nearly all carpeted. T. 
 suggests that they must have been taken to 
 Boulogne or somewhere, and the shell fire was a 
 bomb party practising bombs. I don't know 
 whether that sort of nonsense is useful or not; 
 after all there is something to be said for the truth 
 on most occasions. 
 
 My servant is doing rather better, but he is an 
 old humbug. Told me he was no longer young- 
 getting on for 40 ! 
 
 REST CAMP, Sunday 30. 
 
 C Coy. is stopping back after all for a day or 
 two more. 
 
 REST CAMP, February i. 
 
 I am so sorry about Frdk. It will be a great 
 blow to him, I know, not because of the climbing 
 
 45 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 or anything of that sort, but because he'll hate 
 not to be able to rush about on other people's 
 behalf, and will, of course, not be able to see him- 
 self in the heroically wounded light. 
 
 I don't think it's going to be any good my telling 
 you I'm likely to be in the trenches soon or other- 
 wise : at present I'm still here with the Coy. and 
 may go up for a day for some time to come. So 
 you'd better just think I'm in the best possible 
 place. We're across the road from the old camp 
 in what was Hd. Quarters a much finer hut, 
 and I have a bed sacking hung over boards 
 which I must say I like much less than the floor 
 as it sags in the middle, which the floor doesn't. 
 No doubt it's less draughty, and as it has started 
 to freeze and be cold of nights, I dare say the bed 
 is on the whole an improvement. 
 
 January 27. (To his Mother.) 
 
 Many thanks for the magnificent parcel of 
 biscuits and rocks and socks and all the other 
 things. The whole mess rose en masse at the Edin- 
 burgh rock and pigged it. It seems very much 
 a thing to have now and then. But you mustn't 
 send so much at a time. We simply^ can't eat it, 
 and eat too much in the effort. So economise, 
 my mother, and help your country and your son 
 at the same time. 
 
 4 6 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 The scarf from Raymond and Meriel 1 is really 
 very useful; I mostly wear it round my waist in 
 the evenings. 
 
 REST CAMP, February 3. 
 
 Just a line before we go up to the trenches. 
 Only three days at a time. I will try and write 
 each day but don't count on it. Not always easy 
 to write and not always easy to send if you do. 
 
 TRENCHES, February 4. 
 
 I don't know if this will get off to-day. I came 
 up with the rear last night, and the Blighters 
 shelled the road as we went, one about 100 yds. 
 behind, another in front and off to the left and 
 right 'cannon in front of them/ in fact but not 
 bad. And all the old hands are ready with stories 
 of how they came along with shrapnel bursting 
 over their heads in the old days. The nuisance 
 was not knowing whether the next is going to be 
 in front or behind. 
 
 Several other regiments got off the road and 
 stopped, but the R.B.s marched on not, I may say, 
 without my consulting my sergeant, as I fancy I 
 should have stopped myself, and taken shelter, 
 
 1 Raymond and Meriel Vernde, son and daughter of his brother 
 Arthur, of the I.C.S., mentioned in the introduction. 
 
 47 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 though it's the wrong thing to do unless the shelling 
 is very heavy. The trouble is to know what is 
 heavy and what isn't. However, we arrived quite 
 safely, and I have the satisfaction of knowing 
 that this is about the worst trench that even some 
 of the sergeants have been in. More for its general 
 unpleasantness than for anything else. You can 
 easily step in over your thigh-boots in mud; I'm 
 writing in a dug-out in which you can't sit upright 
 and through which there is a trickle of water; the 
 stench in parts is too appalling for words, and we 
 have been having shells right over our heads, 
 luckily doing no damage, for the last four hours, 
 starting at breakfast. If you move by day you 
 have to go double. Any one who finds it 'ripping' 
 is very much to be envied, if he exists, but I doubt 
 it. T. suggested the people you mentioned must 
 be with one of the armies that have never been 
 in the trenches. And you must remember that 
 gunners probably don't see one shell to a thousand 
 they fire. 
 
 However, we've had no casualties as yet, and 
 I dare say shan't. To tell you of the advantage 
 of this trench one gets much more sleep, as one 
 simply can't move about much; and my feet are 
 warm with a pair of thick soles in the gum boots 
 and three pairs of thick socks. 
 
 The view from here is rather quaint. On our 
 right front is a wood with every tree struck by 
 lightning, as it were, and the ground below blackened 
 
 4 8 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 too. This afternoon has turned fine, after rain 
 all night, and I have been watching the snipers 
 sniping while our guns have begun to pound their 
 trenches in retaliation, and you see volumes of 
 smoke and a German trench fly into the air with a 
 crash. I must say it strikes me as only less horrible 
 than the English ones doing so; but it always bucks 
 the men to see our guns getting to work, and they 
 will stand any amount of pounding themselves 
 for the sake of it. 
 
 TRENCHES, February 5. 
 
 All is well, except that I've rather gone off my 
 feed in this filthy place. It's largely due to the 
 smell and dirt of the food. Our dug-out really is 
 a floor of mire which absorbs anything dropped in 
 it, and is composed, I should say, largely of other 
 people's rotting socks and bread crumbs ! And 
 one wanders about over the knee in quagmire, 
 never knowing when you're going deeper. Fearful 
 row, guns going all the time. We've had no casual- 
 ties except two men shot by snipers, one killed 
 the first in C Coy. since I joined which is extra- 
 ordinarily good. And this man T. had warned 
 to keep his head down only five minutes before. 
 One calls it carelessness, but the fact is, after 
 you've stooped till your back aches, it's almost 
 beyond human nature not to straighten up 
 occasionally. 
 
 49 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 I went out with a wiring party in front of the 
 trenches last night for about an hour and a half. 
 T. went himself with the men he's very nice in 
 that way, so I could not but offer to go too. It 
 sounds more exciting than it is. I mostly got 
 mixed up with the wire in the dark, while one of 
 the corporals did all the work; and we weren't 
 fired on, except by stray bullets, and put up quite 
 a fair amount. The old hands don't mind a bit, 
 but the boys don't like it. We come out to- 
 morrow. 
 
 Better close before the mud out of my hair or 
 neck falls on this. Haven't washed, haven't 
 shaved since coming in. Nor has nobody. 
 
 Sunday, February 6? 
 
 I am very well and fit but I suppose I have just 
 found out what it can be like. We have been 
 heavily shelled for about two hours, and one sat 
 there with intervals of seconds, it seemed, not 
 knowing where the next would come. The Boches 
 have just left off for the day, I hope, as, though 
 the casualties were not heavy, it was enough for 
 everybody's nerves. Several men are suffering 
 from shock shivering and quaking and having 
 to be carried off on stretchers. I'm sitting beside 
 a bad case now he can't even move. The marvel 
 is that he came out alive he was one of four in a 
 
 50 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 dug-out, and was pulled out uninjured, the rest 
 being killed. I don't want to meet any one who's 
 had a ripping time out here. 
 
 By the way, this man has my scarf Raymond 
 and Meriel gave me. I wish you'd send me another 
 like it thick wool, loosely knitted, about a foot 
 wide and three yards long the longer the better. 
 
 T. is splendid under this sort of thing. I wasn't 
 as bad as I expected. I was in our dug-out to 
 begin with with two Buff officers and got a stone 
 pretty hard on my tin hat, after which I proposed 
 we should move out, which we did, and the dug- 
 out was knocked in a little later. Sat behind the 
 parapet with the Buffs trying to find a safe place, 
 but there wasn't any available. Found a man 
 horribly injured in the face, with the C.S.M. 
 who had just escaped. Tried to give him morphia, 
 but couldn't manage it, so went for stretcher- 
 bearers, who attended to him. 
 
 Boches have just begun shelling again con- 
 found them after half an hour's interval. Will 
 send this off if we get out safely. We move in 
 about three hours none too soon. 
 
 Monday. Arrived here safe and sound in support 
 trenches about 3.30 a.m. after the most unpleasant 
 day very nearly that I've had. I still think 
 it's right that war should be damnable, but I wish 
 everybody could have an idea of how beastly it 
 can be. 
 
 The Boches shelled us twice yesterday after I 
 51 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 wrote, but only for a little, I'm glad to say, as 
 everybody had had enough, I think, and several 
 of the oldest hands said it was the worst shelling 
 they had ever been through. Our casualties were 
 remarkably small considering that wherever you 
 crouched two or three shells seemed to split over 
 your head every second. We had only five killed 
 and about a dozen injured. T. sat most of the 
 time with a wounded man across his knees, and 
 the man said he knew it would be all right when 
 the captain came along : which I thought was 
 rather nice. One of our best sergeants was killed 
 a very nice man who was rather a friend of 
 mine, though not in my platoon. I think the men 
 are wonderful and awfully good to one another. 
 The C.S.M. was knocked senseless by the same 
 shell that injured the man I mentioned, and when 
 he came to, dragged him into the dug-out, to which 
 I traced them by a pool of blood. Even the chef, 
 when I went for the stretcher-bearers, dashed out 
 and leapt an open part of the trench where it had 
 been crumped in to go and help, which I'm afraid 
 will render me weak-minded towards his cookery 
 in future; the shells flying as hard as ever. It's 
 an extraordinary sensation every portion of the 
 trenches seemed to have shells exploding over them 
 and you were nearly deafened by the near ones. 
 I really was in a great state of funk, but I'm not 
 sure that it's avoidable. The least sensitive of 
 the men, I fancy, are strung up to the last pitch, 
 
 52 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 and I doubt if even T. was as cool as he looked, 
 though looking it is all the battle under the cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 C. was our only other officer there and he was 
 very cool, and pulled the living man out of the 
 smashed dug-out, which was a terrible sight. I 
 would like all praisers of war to be under that sort 
 of fire for a day, and if any remained, they would 
 have less to say for it. The Buff youths were 
 young and quite cheery, though they would ask 
 me where to go, which I wasn't at all competent 
 to tell them, and had to make them try several 
 places without finding any that was really of use. 
 At the end of it about 5 o'clock T., C. and I 
 ate cake without tea and waited for the regiment 
 that was due to relieve us. The latter arrived 
 about two or three hours after time a thing that 
 can be singularly annoying under those circum- 
 stances, as the Boches began shelling again after 
 we should have been well away, and I thought it 
 was all going to recommence for another three 
 hours. Luckily it didn't and I got off with my 
 party about 11.30 p.m. for a five mile walk in thigh 
 gum-boots and all our packs and things. I don't 
 know when I have been more hot and exhausted. 
 Rather over halfway luckily we came to the place 
 where we hand in the gum-boots an enormous 
 dark building where they gave us hot soup (it 
 tasted of tea and oxo mixed in muddy cups !) 
 grateful and comforting nevertheless. During the 
 
 53 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 last half of the way we passed a man who'd gone 
 lame from another platoon and I dropped behind 
 to give him directions, but couldn't find him in 
 the dark, so went on by myself. Rather eerie in 
 the dark in unknown country with the sound of 
 the guns in the distance. 
 
 I was very glad to get in at 3.30 a.m. and find 
 hot tea and a bed. Have washed this morning 
 first time for four days ! 
 
 Outside there is the most peaceful scene I have 
 seen for weeks green fields and unstruck trees, 
 though the brutes put a few shells over here even, 
 yesterday. 
 
 I couldn't get this off yesterday as there was no 
 posting during the shells, but it will go this after- 
 noon. 
 
 I feel rather doubtful as to whether I should 
 tell you quite the unpleasantest side like this; 
 but I think it's rather good that nowadays, when 
 women have so much influence, they should not 
 be fooled with the rosy side of things only. I 
 don't think I've exaggerated and I don't think 
 I'm using my imagination. At any rate I'm willing 
 to bet that not one of the men but would have 
 given a good deal to be out of it. 
 
 Wednesday, February 8 or g. 
 
 Couldn't get you a letter yesterday as I slept 
 most of the time after a fatigue party up to 2.30 
 
 54 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 a.m. and then had to hustle to another at 4.30 
 p.m. Got back at 2.30 a.m. this morning. Really 
 rather boring dripping wet covered with mud 
 shelled at intervals, and so on. Will write more 
 soon. 
 
 Wednesday, February 9. 
 
 We aren't up again for some days, and I don't 
 suppose we shall have another day like Sunday 
 for some time to come. I hope not. It seemed im- 
 possible that we should get off so lightly. I suppose 
 they put over twenty shells a minute on the 
 average. I sent you a line to-day to catch the 
 post, which, having slept from 2.30 to nearly 12, 
 I hadn't time to make longer. It was a horrible 
 wet night, and I led them slightly astray not 
 in the general direction, but taking a longer road 
 than I need have done, which annoyed me rather, 
 and ending up about a quarter of an hour from 
 the spot without being sure where I was. However, 
 I found a General there who lent me an orderly 
 for the rest of the route, and seemed very amiable, 
 and we got in about half an hour late. It didn't 
 much matter, and came from depending on a 
 sergeant who said he knew the road instead of 
 making sure of it myself, which in the dark wasn't 
 too easy. As it happened, I went a very safe way 
 and we never met a shell, going or coming, though 
 we got some where we were digging. 
 
 55 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 You've no idea what it is like taking 100 men 
 through an unknown bad trench at night. Some- 
 times you're on a board, then well over your knees 
 in mire, then you trip over a wire or climb over 
 a portion that has been knocked in by shells, or 
 you come through a tunnel or out into an open 
 quagmire. Everybody ought to sprain their ankles 
 ten times over in the course of three hours of it, 
 but nobody did last night. It's quite a strain in 
 itself, apart from the shells, and the whole job took 
 eight-and-a-half hours. I think the men are 
 fearfully good about it awfully slow, but they 
 stagger along, grousing a certain amount, but 
 generally cheerful. I believe as you become a 
 veteran soldier you can tell almost exactly when 
 and where a shell is going to burst, which is an 
 advantage in that most of them aren't going to 
 burst exactly where one is standing not that 
 you could do anything if it were. At present I 
 haven't the foggiest idea where they're coming, 
 and can't even distinguish between ours going 
 off close at hand and theirs arriving, which gives 
 me a sort of double share of the artillery effect ! 
 I fancy it's the same with most new folks. Of 
 course during a strafe like Sunday's nobody can 
 tell there are too many flying too rapidly in all 
 directions at once. I don't wonder the poor Injuns 
 didn't like it. The best men get rattled after a 
 certain amount of it. 
 
 It's very curious, I think, that without one's 
 56 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 paying any attention to it in peace time, some 
 of the brainiest people of all countries have been 
 inventing these infernal weapons, which can and 
 do besides merely killing inflict tortures at least 
 as bad as anything the Chinese invented. 
 
 I've got a night off to-night, which, after two 
 successive nights, is a considerable boon and 
 blessing, and enables me to write properly. 
 
 There are so many ways of getting done in while 
 taking the utmost precautions that I don't wonder 
 the men get absolutely reckless, and care no more 
 about rifle bullets than they do about fleas. Think 
 of the way they go off into the dark along a road 
 which they know is swept by shrapnel and walk 
 on through it without apparently turning a hair. 
 
 Friday, February n. 
 
 I am very fitly, thank you. It was the awful 
 smell that made me feel sick the first few days 
 in the trenches, but I was already much better 
 before they started to strafe us, having kept away 
 from food for a bit. 
 
 To-day I've been sitting in the dug-out, doing 
 nothing but doze over a very funny coke brazier, 
 which, however, has kept me warm. We don't 
 go up in the front line again for a day or two and 
 then only for a very short time. We ought to be out 
 in so-called rest almost by the time you get this. 
 
 57 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 I led a fairly easy carrying party fatigue last 
 night got one shell to our right which blew across 
 the road, but nobody was hurt. A bit of mud 
 touched my coat in passing, which indicates the 
 pleasures of these roads. Got back at 10 p.m. 
 instead of 2 a.m., which was a nice change. 
 
 It's been a most slimy day dismal Flemish 
 rain a steady stream of it, making puddles every- 
 where. 
 
 I didn't tell you of a letter I censored from one 
 of our sergeants to the mother of one of the men 
 who were killed. It really was one of the nicest 
 I've seen. He said ' We found your son in the 
 ruins of the dug-out, where death must have been 
 instantaneous. His head drooped forward a little, 
 and there was a very peaceful expression on his 
 face as I took him by the hand for the last time.' 
 Then he w r ent on to explain how popular he had 
 been with his platoon, and how he had fallen 
 fighting for his country, and enclosed some snow- 
 drops 'picked just behind the lines.' 
 
 [To F.G.S.] 
 
 In Support. February n, 1916. 
 
 MY DEAR FRED, 
 
 I do hope it continues to go well with you 
 and you will manage to get back soon and cheer 
 England up. We had a distinctly hot time a few 
 
 58 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 days ago in the front line two hours of what 
 every one agreed was about the fiercest shelling 
 they had known. Extraordinarily few casualties 
 considering, but it is a cruel business. Even to 
 see men suffering from shock, flopping about the 
 trenches like grassed fish, is enough to sicken one, 
 and some of the face wounds are terrible. They 
 were splendid most of them will leave any shelter 
 they have got to go and help one of the wounded 
 and they remain cheerful to the last. Nor is it 
 the sort of heedless gaiety I used to suspect them 
 of, but a gallant effort to make the best of things 
 and not let their morale fall below an ideal. Stret- 
 cher-bearers dodging about among shells some 
 of our older N.C.O.s cheering up the grenadiers 
 of a service Batt. who had got rattled a latest 
 draft youth who never took his eye off his loop- 
 hole during the bombardment (so his corporal 
 told me) these things are rather good. But any- 
 one who hereafter shows a tendency towards 
 exalting war ought to be drowned straight away 
 by his country. 
 
 Since then we have gone into support, doing 
 fatigues along shelled roads at night not a very 
 cheerful occupation, though here again the men 
 are wonderfully good-tempered and cheerful, and 
 march on in the dark without apparently heeding 
 the shells. 
 
 Am slightly choked by a coke brazier in a dug- 
 out upon which the dismal Flemish rain drips 
 F 59 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 incessantly which makes me aware that I'm not 
 writing a particularly happy letter to an invalid, 
 without being able to reform much. 
 
 Saturday or probably Sunday and I think 
 February 13. 
 
 It's a fine day after a very muddy and sodden 
 one. C. and I are still in support with a portion 
 of the Coy. and don't move up tilt to-morrow; 
 then only for a very short time. Had a whole 
 day's rest yesterday and about ten hours' sleep 
 not bad. No news beyond that. 
 
 My servant has gone sick and I have a new one. 
 I think he will be good. 
 
 In Rest again and very fit. 
 Wednesday, February 16. 
 
 I haven't had a letter from you since Sunday 
 and I haven't been able to write you one, and I 
 have had a time, of which I'll tell you as much 
 as seems lawful. I think I wrote on Sunday morn- 
 ing saying that I wasn't going up into the trenches 
 that day, but was going to carry some rations. 
 Little did I know. We set out in the dark to meet 
 the transport about forty of us and the trans- 
 port was late at the rendezvous by about an hour, 
 and when it did arrive informed me that rations 
 
 60 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 were not to be taken up till a message came through 
 from the Adjutant. So I withdrew my men off 
 the road into a trench one of the sergeants by luck 
 found, and some shells proceeded to come over. 
 Then I met the Doctor outside his dressing-station, 
 and he told me that there had been heavy shelling 
 most of the day and his colleague had been wounded 
 at the door of the dressing-station right back 
 and he was afraid there would be casualties. 
 The walking cases began to come down the road 
 as we waited a weird sight bandaged men 
 staggering along in the moonlight. 
 
 Presently I received a message to say we were 
 to go forward with the rations, and found the 
 Regimental C.S.M. waiting to conduct us in a 
 great fatigue. Our two companies up had been 
 heavily shelled all day and we were to relieve them 
 message I ought to have got before I started, 
 but which hadn't come through. So there we 
 were without our packs, our coats or our gum- 
 boots, going into deep slime for a couple of days 
 or so. We went forward with the stuff; I shouldered 
 a huge sack of coke myself which I could hardly 
 lift, and the others were almost equally laden, if 
 not quite. As we went down the road, bang went 
 some shells just ahead of us and in the rear, and 
 we all flopped down and I shoved the sack in front 
 of me, not that it would have been of any use. 
 We waited till they stopped and then went on to 
 find a four-horse waggon just ahead with two 
 
 61 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 horses and the driver killed by one of the shells. 
 Got to the trenches without casualties and found 
 T. waiting to lead us up. My dinner and bed 
 gone for the night. We got up by slow degrees 
 and took over from one of the other Coys, who had 
 lost very heavily. The Boche restarted almost 
 as soon as we got to the Coy. H.Q. dug-out, and 
 there I sat the rest of the evening, and in fact all 
 night a very strange scene. A place smaller 
 than my study at home into which plopped crowds 
 at intervals to take refuge from the shells. All 
 sorts and conditions, from the C.O. who had come 
 up to see how things were, to a Scotch doctor 
 hastily sent for with loads of stretcher-bearers. 
 Later, a sergeant from another regiment suffer- 
 ing from nerves dashed in, having abandoned 
 his digging party, of which he felt sure none re- 
 mained, though only one or two were hit. I gave 
 him a kola nut and sent him off; and engineer 
 officers turned up, and officers of other Batts., 
 and the post, bringing quite the best timed parcel 
 I've had, from my mother, containing a cake, 
 gingerbread, dates, Edinburgh rock, and a pair 
 of socks. The socks I put on over the others, and 
 stuffed myself into some killed or wounded man's 
 gum-boots which I found were full of holes. The 
 rest of the things we and a lot of others lived on 
 for the next twenty-four hours, during which we 
 hadn't a drop of water only whiskey. As a matter 
 of fact, I had a cushy time, comparatively speaking, 
 
 62 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 as T. insisted on placing the riflemen himself and 
 M. did the bombers. It appeared that the trenches 
 were very nearly non-existent, the casualties large, 
 and C Coy. had the pleasant prospect of sitting 
 in what holes remained for some time. The sappers 
 deepened some holes for them during the night, 
 but before morning one of the sergeants I brought 
 up was killed and several men had been buried. 
 It was impossible to stir during the night, but in 
 the early morning T. went round and extricated 
 the half-buried. Most of the next day the Boches 
 shelled again and it grew so heavy in the afternoon 
 that T., M., and I the only officers up I. having 
 been taken off the day before with bad shell shock 
 retired from H.Q. to a sort of drain pipe under 
 the road, where we stood doubled up in water over 
 our thigh gum-boots for two hours. (The other 
 Coy. officers had stood the day before like this in 
 the same place for six hours, and I don't know how 
 they stood it.) Shells that burst near roared 
 through the funnel and nearly blew one off one's 
 legs. (It was in there that I. had been knocked 
 out by the shock the day before.) 
 
 Then the water rose and we cleared out, not 
 relishing the idea of being drowned as well as 
 buried, which seemed possible, as one shell just 
 overhead made the whole place shift. I made 
 sure the Boches were going to attack at the end 
 of it, and said so to T., who doubted it; but as it 
 turned out they did actually give the signal for 
 
 63 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 the assault, and began to get over. Meanwhile 
 P.B. at Batt. H.Q. far back, thought we had put 
 up a signal for help (which we couldn't do, wires 
 being all cut) and he wired through to the gunners, 
 who presently put up so terrific a barrage that the 
 Boches instead of coming on bolted back very 
 luckily for us; and at the end of an artillery strafe 
 of some hours, when night arrived, we were told 
 that we should be relieved that night. They say 
 the Boches suffered very heavily. I hope so, to 
 make up for ours. Really the men were wonderful, 
 as always. There was C Coy. lads of twenty, 
 many of them planted out in burrows for thirty 
 hours, plastered with shells no communication 
 T. wouldn't let anybody stir by day. And at 
 the end of it only two posts had broken at all in 
 one of which one was killed, three buried and unable 
 to stir, and the others suffering from shell shock; 
 and in the other they had all dug one another out 
 two or three times before they gave way besides 
 having three wounded. Then we had the same 
 scene as the night before reliefs arriving and the 
 wounded being brought down. M. bandaged 
 and I administered laudanum and kola nut for 
 hours. 
 
 Then Tatham went off and I moved the Coy. 
 off in a hurricane of snow and icy rain. I'd been 
 wet to the waist for about twenty-four hours, 
 and I imagine the men were wetter, and I had no 
 feeling in my legs for about two hours. They put 
 
 6 4 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 whizz-bangs over us at one point in the open, but 
 we got back to the support camp in the end, just 
 at daylight. I sat up from 6 a.m. to 12 drying 
 my drawers over a brazier (while the others slept) 
 without any trousers on. Later at night we had 
 to move again here, and I was left to bring the 
 Coy. with M. We had to come across open country. 
 Just as we started a terrific bombardment began 
 on both sides, and in a tearing wind and rain we 
 ran right into the Boche barrage and had to bustle 
 through it. My idea was to try and find some 
 shelter, and one of the sergeants positively urged 
 it, but Sergeant C. said, ' No, sir, the best thing 
 is to get on,' which accordingly we did. I knew 
 Cousens was the better adviser, and we got through 
 without any casualties and arrived here soon after 
 midnight wet through again after a most weary 
 trudge. This morning we the Batt. were hauled 
 out of bed to receive, I believe, the General's 
 compliments; but he was detained at the last 
 moment, so we didn't. But I believe the whole 
 Brigade is to be patted on the back. 1 
 
 9 p.m. Divisional orders have just come in, 
 patting Batt. on back for its behaviour during this 
 strafe. Several people are to be recommended 
 for D.C.M.s and so forth, including Sergeant C., 
 Corporal A. of my platoon, possibly M., who 
 
 1 This bombardment took place at Hooge, as appears from Sir Douglas 
 Haig's dispatch, dated 19 May, 1916, in which the Batt. is mentioned 
 for its conduct on this occasion. 
 
 65 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 helped some wounded down under fire. A. was 
 the man who shot down the first advancing Boches, 
 who, if he hadn't been at his post watching, might 
 have started an entry for the lot. 
 
 I wish I felt really fit to lead these sort of men, 
 I haven't had enough of it to feel really useful. 
 
 We're out again for some little time I can't 
 tell you exactly how long. 
 
 I don't know if this sort of account is interesting. 
 It could be much more so if I could explain the 
 sort of positions, but I have to avoid anything that 
 could be construed into military information, and 
 so I rather mix it up. It's extraordinary how one 
 doesn't feel the worse for this sort of thing. I 
 don't know when I've been colder or wetter for 
 twenty-four hours : my teeth simply chattered 
 with cold in that drain pipe, and sitting without 
 your trousers for hours in a dug-out on a winter's 
 day doesn't sound salubrious. But I am very 
 well. 
 
 Thursday. Hope to get a bath to-day after a 
 fortnight of being plastered with mud from head 
 to foot. 
 
 REST CAMP, Friday, February 18 (?) 
 
 Yesterday we paraded for the G.O.C. Division, 
 who made quite an eloquent speech, if rather 
 inanimate; said the Batt. had added a new 
 
 66 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 laurel wreath to the Rifle Brigade and set a splendid 
 example to the Batts. who had already benefited 
 by it, under the hardest trial troops could endure, 
 viz., concentrated shell-fire over many hours. 
 It rather amused me to read in the paper next day 
 an account of several little artillery engagements 
 
 on the front, which the men quite welcome 
 
 as a change from the monotony of the trenches. 
 Blithering idiot. If he had ever seen what remained 
 of a Coy. coming out shattered and wounded and 
 drenched and hungry, to tramp for hours through 
 a snowstorm to some place where they can recuper- 
 ate. Or if he had ever tried even ten minutes of 
 fierce shell-fire. It's true the men stick it and make 
 little of it, once it's all over; but the stoutest of 
 them would probably give anything to be out of 
 it at the time. Isn't there any imagination in 
 those who stay at home that they can stand that 
 sort of bosh in a leading London paper? I don't 
 know why I'm being rhetorical. 
 
 The Brigadier, who followed the G.O.C., merely 
 said, ' R.B.s, I'm not eloquent. I only want to 
 tell you how proud I am of you and how pleased 
 I am with you ' which the men seemed to prefer 
 to the more elaborate oration. 
 
 I went in with C. this morning and had a bath 
 the first for over three weeks. I have never been 
 so piggishly dirty before my hair plastered with 
 mud like a Papuan's; and I'm not clean after an 
 hour's scrubbing in hot water. To-morrow I take 
 
 67 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 two platoons in to be bathed and shall have another 
 myself. 
 
 Have a slight sneeze and sniffle coming on, but 
 you can't wonder at it, can you? 
 
 T., who draws not bad cartoons, has done one 
 of me standing doubled up in the drain pipe, 
 holding up the skirts of my Aquascutum out of 
 the water with a large shell in the act of coming 
 through ! He entitled his drawing, ' The only 
 place where Vernede could not go to sleep.' 
 
 C. and I decided to recommend T. for a dis- 
 tinction, so we went to the C.O. about it and he 
 informed us that he had already decided to send 
 in his name for coolness and gallantry; so we hope 
 he will get the D.S.O. 
 
 The stupid thing is that, as one realises out 
 here, these honours go to the higher command 
 as a matter of course and sometimes evade the 
 lower to avoid giving too many away. War is 
 very like Peace in that respect. 
 
 REST CAMP, February 20. 
 
 Not much news. There never is in these rest 
 camps. We've had a fine day to-day cold but 
 bright, which is a nice change from the dismal 
 Flanders weather. T. and F. have gone off on 
 leave and I am left in charge of the Coy. for the 
 time being with C. This isn't the same rest camp 
 
 68 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 as the last perhaps a trifle less muddy, but other- 
 wise very simbly, and we live in a damp hut with 
 a smoky brazier and are not supposed to move 
 about much. I am sorry letters have been taking 
 longer, and I'm afraid you will have had to wait 
 several days for my account of the trenches; but 
 you mustn't ever worry. You see, one is abso- 
 lutely cut off at such times from posts. Your guess 
 was about right as to the whereabouts; but you 
 see we came off very well on the whole. 
 
 The Corps and Army Commanders have also 
 tendered their thanks to the Batt., which shows 
 we did something, I suppose. 
 
 I think there will be very fierce fighting for 
 some time to come both sides, I suppose, are 
 fully armed now; and there is bound to be some 
 up and down; but don't let any one make you 
 downhearted. The men are endlessly gallant, 
 and the higher command is bound to learn in time. 
 Anyway we rest here for quite a long time probably 
 and watch aeroplanes go over and get shot at. 
 I have not seen one hit yet by either side. The 
 papers are so complaisant over every little success 
 that they are almost bound to be equally down- 
 hearted over every failure don't believe them. 
 Only believe that we shall win in the end. 
 
 I'm afraid I can't begin to think of leave for a 
 couple of months more. 
 
 As to your question about Quartermasters : 
 some of them do go up occasionally, not to the 
 
 69 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 trenches actually, but to what they call a 'dump' 
 on the way there, and so far they undoubtedly 
 run risks. Every road out here is liable to be 
 shelled, and so far everybody takes his chance. 
 But the man who takes chances all the time is 
 the infantry soldier in the front trench of the worst 
 sectors; and I don't think England can do too 
 much for these little riflemen when they get home, 
 if they get home. 
 
 February 22. 
 
 Am in the middle of a violent sneefle. As luck 
 will have it, I've got to go with the other O.C.s 
 and explore some trenches to-night not for going 
 into, but so as to know them when we do get into 
 them. It would be quite interesting if I hadn't 
 such a sneefle on, but I dare say being out all night 
 will cure it; and I shall have my scarfs handy. 
 
 I'm lying in my valise to write this at 6 p.m. 
 and I thought I would get a doze till 10, when we 
 start, and it's decidedly warmer in the valise than 
 out. These dark, damp huts with nothing but a 
 smoky brazier for a few hours a day are well cal- 
 culated to make one sneef, even if I hadn't had 
 twenty-four hours or more of wetness in that drain- 
 pipe trench. I am sure decent comfort between 
 whiles is what they want, and what neither we 
 nor the men get in any sufficient quantity. 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 9.15 p.m. Have dozed a certain amount and 
 eaten a large meal, so can't be very bad. I expect 
 I'll be back to-morrow in time to add to this before 
 the post goes; but will put it into an envelope 
 in case not. 
 
 23. Expedition all off at last moment, so that I 
 got to bed all right and feel considerably better 
 this morning. Nasty snowy day, though. Last 
 night at 10 p.m. it was rather a fine scene white 
 snow on the ground freezing, and a moon that 
 looked as if it had been crumped by a large shell. 
 
 REST CAMP, February 24. 
 
 Just a line to say my sneefle is fast disappearing. 
 We're just moving to a new rest camp. Had an 
 interesting day yesterday, which will tell you 
 about in next letter. This is in haste to catch post. 
 
 February 25. (To His Mother.) 
 
 It's bitterly cold, freezing hard and our hut is 
 more like a funnel at the N. Pole than a residence 
 no door, and two holes instead of windows, 
 and a very little coal-dust to make a fire with. 
 We're all in the same boat, more or less, but it 
 doesn't make it any warmer ! 
 
 The Batt. had a lecture on discipline from an 
 old General to-day oh, lor, some of these old 
 
 71 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 boys would haul up St George on his way back 
 from fighting the Dragon in order to rebuke him 
 for having some mud on his armour. 
 
 Saturday, February 26. 
 
 My cold is much better going, in fact, as fast 
 as you can expect in this benighted country, which 
 at the moment is under several inches of snow. 
 We've got a door to our hut, but still no windows 
 so far, so we are still draughty. I ought to have 
 a little more time for the next day or two, as D., 
 who is senior subaltern in the Batt. and belongs 
 to C Coy., has come back from leave and naturally 
 takes over the O.C.ing till T. returns. 
 
 The only thing I can think of wanting is a pair 
 of gloves as I've lost that good pair we got. Any 
 sort would do as long as they are very large and 
 woolly or otherwise lined. I use them not so much 
 for warmth as for protecting my hands in the 
 trenches. You pull yourself along like a monkey, 
 and in the dark may lay hold of barbed wire, 
 pointed stakes or sheer mud; or a combination 
 of the same. 
 
 We had a lecture in discipline yesterday from a 
 very Bigwig it made me quite sick. I am still 
 altogether up against that aspect of the Army 
 which I believe to be only a pale imitation of 
 Teutonic methods, and if carried out rigidly, a 
 
 72 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 mistake. However, it's their say and they will 
 have it, or try to have it. 
 
 I don't think I told you of my walk with the 
 Acting C.O. and the other O.C.s to look at some 
 other trenches. It was through a rather less 
 desolate part of the country sloping and green 
 instead of smashed-up mud-holes; and we went 
 near one of the recently captured trenches. Called 
 on an old General at one place, and he asked the 
 C.O. if he knew these trenches. The C.O. said, 
 Yes, the Batt. had been there before; whereupon 
 the old Thing just roared with laughter and 
 said, ' Yes, but the Boches have got them all 
 now ! ' 
 
 He was, however, not a bad old one only cheery 
 seemed to know about things and be reasonably 
 optimistic. We came back the last five miles 
 in a six-horse artillery limber, and I don't think 
 I've ever been so jolted in my life. It seemed a 
 fairly good cure for colds. 
 
 February 28. . 
 
 There's very little news. The snow has all gone 
 and it is steadily sploshing with rain, and we're 
 in the same rest camp as ever, and my cold is much 
 betly but my throat is rather sore to be truthful 
 but then so is everybody else's, I think. 
 
 I asked you for gloves, didn't I? Two pipes 
 73 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 would also oblige. I've just broken the last again. 
 That's the trouble out here. 
 
 I'm afraid I can't hold out any hopes of leave 
 for a long time. 
 
 March to-morrow, so I suppose winter is thinking 
 of coming to an end. I shan't be sorry. It's very 
 difficult to keep oneself and the men fit in this 
 sort of thing, and there never was a bigger lie 
 than that colds are unknown at the Front. The 
 absence of one is the rarity, I should say. 
 
 March i. 
 
 I somehow fell asleep this afternoon instead 
 of writing to you, and now there is no time before 
 post goes. 
 
 It is a beautiful day the first for weeks. 
 
 Have just seen a Seaforth Service Batt. go by 
 to the pipes to the attack, I think. Good-looking 
 men. 
 
 T. is just back. 
 
 REST CAMP, March I. 
 
 I sent you off a small snip to catch the post, and 
 now I don't see why I shouldn't start a longer one. 
 T., who has come back from leave rather ill 
 cold, I fancy is asleep on my bed, C. reading, and 
 a not bad fire in the hut, which is fairly peaceful. 
 
 74 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 When we shall move I don't know probably 
 suddenly and soon. There are a lot of things in 
 the air, and I wish I could always tell you what 
 little we know and expect; but we mayn't, and 
 anyhow it's just as well, perhaps, as they don't 
 always come off. 
 
 I'm rather annoyed about leave and the time 
 it will be before we can even think of it apart 
 from the chance of it being stopped altogether. 
 I can't help thinking that married men ought to 
 be given preference, because there are two people 
 to be considered; and also, I think it should start 
 at the bottom instead of the top. More decent 
 somehow for a C.O. to see his juniors off before 
 he goes himself, and I don't think this is just 
 because I am a 2nd Lieut. However, it doesn't 
 strike them that way quite the contrary and the 
 men, of course, get much less leave than the officers. 
 There, the sole excuse is that they are less used 
 to it, make less good use of it, and so on in which 
 there is something, though not a great deal. Also, 
 of course, the transport difficulties would crop 
 up. I think myself the answer is that the officers 
 should go less often. One didn't join to get leave. 
 
 I rather foresee a time (after Peace) when people 
 will be sick of the name of the War won't hear 
 a word of it or anything connected with it. There 
 seem to be such people now, and I see numbers 
 of silly books and papers advertised as having 
 nothing to do with the war. It's natural, perhaps, 
 G 75 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 that soldiers should want a diversion, and even 
 civilians; but I rather hope that people won't 
 altogether forget it in our generation. That's 
 what I wanted to say in the verses I began about 
 
 Not in our time, O Lord, we now beseech Thee 
 To grant us peace the sword has bit too deep 
 
 but never got on with. What I mean is that for 
 us there can be no real forgetting. We have seen 
 too much of it, known too many people's sorrow, 
 felt it too much, to return to an existence in which 
 it has no part. Not that one wants to be morbid 
 about it later; but still less does one want to be 
 as superficial as before. I fancy this comes from 
 
 hearing say, that the Army will be the place to 
 
 be in when Peace is declared no work, all leave 
 and amusement. I don't think it will be or should 
 be, and I'm sure it's a mistake to suppose that 
 times ahead are going to be gay and easy in any 
 case. The sword has bit too deep. He's only a 
 boy and a very nice one and doesn't mean a quarter 
 of what he says, but I do wish these nice and high- 
 spirited youths learned as well as dared. 
 
 Every one here seems quite cheerful about Verdun, 
 and rumour says that the French have done very 
 well. It's quite likely, I suppose. 
 
 Am at present endeavouring to learn the Lewis 
 gun, as we're all supposed to know a little of it. 
 Like all machines, it seems to me very mysterious, 
 
 76 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 though Lindsay 1 would probably know all about 
 it in ten minutes. I think I should be less stupid 
 at knowing good positions to fire it from, which 
 is, I suppose, more the officer's job. 
 
 Bombs are fairly simple, though beastly. In fact 
 I imagine they have made the war more cruel 
 even than the artillery. 
 
 March 2. Fine day just turned to rain. Still 
 don't know when we move. Nothing special on. 
 
 Still Rest Camp, March 4. 
 
 It is the most revolting weather again, snow 
 and hail and rain alternately, and we are very 
 lucky to be out of the trenches. You mustn't 
 picture me suffering hardships, even in the trenches. 
 It's only what you might call discomforts as long 
 as one is well and unwounded, and really this 
 hut has been much better the last two or three 
 days, owing to more fuel. 
 
 Why we haven't gone into the trenches is that 
 we are or were in reserve for an attack you probably 
 will have read about. Luckily it was very sue. 
 cessful and we didn't have to go up. I told you 
 of the Scots marching up the road to the pipes. 
 They were on their way to it, and the following 
 day they came back detachments with Boche 
 
 1 Lindsay B. Fry, an engineer, my brother. C. H. V. 
 77 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 prisoners rather picturesque, and very conscious 
 of having done well. 
 
 T. was much taken with my fur lining, which I 
 lent him when he retired to my bed; it certainly is 
 very nice and light. 
 
 I am just off to try to get a bath at a camp 
 near haven't had one for about three weeks, 
 and am too dirty for words. 
 
 REST CAMP, March 6. 
 
 We go up about two days hence to some different 
 trenches, supposed to be a great improvement 
 or are rumoured to be so. Have been very lucky 
 to be out during this awful weather. Have been 
 digging drains this morning (physical drill at 
 7.30 !) in the snow and take the men to bathe 
 this afternoon. 
 
 We only go into reserve anyhow for some days. 
 
 REST CAMP, March 7. 
 
 It snowed last night, and wet snow which pre- 
 vents anything being done, which is one advantage, 
 as the ground is a mass of icy puddles. I hope 
 it will improve before we go into the trenches. 
 I am very well slight sore throat, but every one 
 has them. 
 
 78 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 There wasn't any need to worry about that 
 attack which we were not wanted for, as it went 
 exactly as planned. 
 
 REST CAMP, March 9. 
 
 Beautiful day after hard frost the ground 
 really almost hard for the first time. Just to say 
 we got up; but C. and I shall have a cushy job 
 for next few days making dug-outs in support. 
 Should be very safe. No time to write to-day. 
 
 March 10. 
 
 I started off yesterday with two very nice letters 
 from you and two platoons, and marched five miles 
 in five hours to get to this place, which might be 
 the middle of Plashes Wood, with flares going up 
 and guns crackling in the distance. C., who had 
 gone ahead, had vanished without securing a 
 dug-out for us, and I meandered about till Heaven 
 knows when, looking for one in the darksome 
 fortt. Eventually he turned up midnight or 
 so and we had chocolate and whiskey (the only 
 foods available) with D Coy., who are also here, 
 and then re-hunted for a dug-out till we found 
 one, where we lay extremely cold with the snow 
 
 79 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 drippling around till the servants arrived with 
 a blanket for each of us. Would one, for choice, 
 sleep in a dug-out in the centre of Plashes Wood 
 with deep snow and deeper mud all round, and 
 some dripping thro' the roof, with one army 
 blanket to cover one? Beestje cold, and as every- 
 body started with a cold, it should be a Spartan 
 cure. Was on duty from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., and 
 after that we set our platoon making dug-outs. 
 If only one could keep one's feet dry it wouldn't 
 be bad quite picturesque work easy and no 
 shelling, bullets occasionally hit the trees over- 
 head. This really is a wood living trees, and there 
 are other woods round, quite pretty. I have given 
 your mother's scarf to Corpl. A., and found him 
 sleeping in it last night when I looked into his 
 dug-out. He seemed fearfully pleased with it, 
 as he might be. We are going to mess with D 
 Coy., at their request. For comfort I would much 
 rather mess alone, as our two servants could and 
 would look after us very well, but the invitation 
 was well meant and I dare say a change of society 
 is good. 
 
 March n. Couldn't get this off last night and 
 didn't get a letter from you. 
 
 C. has been ordered off to a course for a fort- 
 night, so I shall have a dug-out and two platoons 
 to myself and shall dig with them. I did some 
 this morning and felt warmer at the end of it. 
 The snow is melting fast. Am just sending off a 
 
 80 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 line to my mother to ask her to make Cording 
 send another pair of knee gum-boots, as mine 
 have been lost, and they are fearfully useful in 
 wet weather. 
 
 March 12. 
 
 It is a most beautiful day the first of Spring, 
 balmy and even hot in the sun quite the nicest 
 day I've spent in Flanders, in spite of the fact 
 that I've re-started a cold in the head. It seems 
 impossible not to have one. As soon as it subsides, 
 something starts it again usually wet feet, which 
 are unavoidable. Still it is nothing but a cold in 
 the head, and everybody has one. 
 
 There is an artillery strafe going on not in 
 this direction, I'm glad to say; but the guns are 
 popping away like mad, and people on either side 
 getting killed. We are, as it might be, in Hanging 
 Wood, our front line where our well was, the Boches 
 at Plashes. The ground from our front line to 
 here is mostly dead, so that the Boches can't see 
 anything : hence they have Taubes out all day 
 trying to see what is going on. Whenever one 
 comes over our sentry whistles and we stop work 
 and take cover. I think they are bound to spot 
 us, for the air is brilliantly clear, and the wood 
 still quite leafless, but they don't seem to have 
 done so up to now. Our guns always shoot at them; 
 
 81 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 and it is a pretty sight, their aeroplanes like silver 
 moths dodging between the white puffs of shell 
 smoke in a blue sky. 
 
 The wood must have been quite a pretty one 
 and isn't bad now. I sit in my dug-out, largely 
 underground, and round the corner is a bomb 
 store, then a field dressing station, H.Q., more 
 stores, and dug-outs all along the rides. Every- 
 where there is evidence of the Tommy's thrift- 
 lessness sacks of meat stuffed into some corner 
 to rot. If they could teach them thrift instead of 
 smartness, it would pay. 
 
 Our dug-out building is going well, and they 
 will be the best I have seen. The men work very 
 well. And yet here we've been in this wood a 
 year, and these will be the first decent dug-outs 
 in it ; those already up being sheer waste of labour. 
 Just outside the wood there are the remains of a 
 Boche aeroplane. E. and I went out to visit it 
 yesterday, but sped back again as there were too 
 many stray bullets about. In the distance you 
 can see ruined and shattered farms and villages 
 skeletons. 
 
 Last night, after about nine hours' work (start- 
 ing at 5 a.m.), I played bridge with D Coy. till n 
 p.m. It's extraordinary all the people that pass 
 through on business machine gunners, sappers, 
 F.O.O.s, trench mortar gangs, digging parties, 
 doctors, Generals, stretcher-bearers and the 
 wounded, who are brought down to the dressing 
 
 82 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 station next my dug-out. Two men of D Coy. 
 were both shot through the chest by a sniper this 
 morning : one walking down quite cheerfully. 
 I really think the men are cheerful on being wounded; 
 it shows what sort of a war it is. You wicked 
 thing, reading my letters to strangers. Just 
 remember that most people don't approve of 
 hearing of the realities and it is not the thing to 
 relate them. On the whole, a very decent feeling, 
 I think. Moreover, most of the thrilling acts of 
 the Front are written, or at any rate are said to be 
 written, by members of the A.S.C. or R.A.M.C., 
 or some other denomination that lives mostly 
 miles behind the firing line. And relations of 
 soldiers may know this, so don't give me away 
 too much. 
 
 Now I must go out to D. for my tea. I am 
 very comfortable and quite well really. I believe 
 I stay here another week at least : then they say 
 we rest and go to a much better part of the line. 
 
 March 13. 
 
 Another beautiful day and the cold again rapidly 
 going. I trotted about the woods on duty (also 
 chasing rats) with a pleasing D sergeant, till n 
 
 p.m., after which and came and sat by my 
 
 fire till 12.30 or so. They insisted on knowing 
 my age, and guessed 32, so I must be ageing visibly, 
 
 83 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 but the truth almost agitated them, as something 
 pertaining to their grandfathers. Both nice lads, 
 desperately keen on being out of it. It is hard 
 luck, I think, spending your youth at this sort 
 of thing. However, we thought one another 
 sporting ! 
 
 My new servant has a wife and family looks 
 20. I've just seen a letter in which he says he is 
 pleased to say he is servant to a very good officer. 
 Meant me to see it, of course. I must say he is 
 an enormous improvement on. the last, and has 
 none of the old soldier tricks. 
 
 Our expert builders pioneers as they are called 
 are rather after my own style of carpentry, and 
 would craze Lindsay. They never saw two pieces 
 of wood to fit, and if they want to measure any- 
 thing, they'll tie a piece of stick and a piece of 
 string together to measure by. Why they can't 
 be taught their job properly I can't think. They 
 get things done, but fearfully clumsily and never 
 by rule or method, and any suggestion of making 
 a dug-out comfortable they resent. I was abso- 
 lutely snubbed by Cpl. - - this morning, who said, 
 ' What we looks to is protection from fire/ ] 
 meekly said, ' If you can get comfort too, why 
 not ?' But he only sniffed. 
 
 8 4 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 SAME PLACE, March 16. 
 
 Last night, I'm sorry to say, I had a man 
 wounded. We were collecting bricks at dusk 
 from a ruined farm near, to roof our dug-out with, 
 and as the men came in they would stand on top 
 of the dug-out. Bullets fly mostly overhead at 
 night, but several came jolly near, and I ducked, 
 as I still cannot avoid doing, and said to Sergeant 
 C. that I thought they were lower than usual and 
 the men ought to clear down. He said, ' Oh, no, 
 sir, they're over the trees.' However, I said to 
 the men they'd better stand lower anyhow, and 
 they'd begun to do it when flop went one of them, 
 and Sergeant C. had the grace to say, ' It seems 
 as if you were right, sir.' The man had got it in 
 the eye and head, but I believe not seriously, and 
 we got him down quick. He himself thought 
 some one had thrown a brick at him and was 
 rather annoyed. Probably lose his eye, poor man. 
 But it was lucky no one else got it, as we were 
 in a cluster of about five or six. It wasn't aimed, 
 of course only a stray but I don't know that 
 I should consider that if I were hit. These N.C.O.s, 
 like C., absolutely scorn strays, but I think that's 
 
 the mistake of being too valiant. Cpl. is 
 
 more or less head of the dug-out party. They 
 are babies. He's supposed to be foreman, and 
 works on one dug-out while another cpl. has 
 
 85 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 another party doing another. He will not explain 
 what he wants done to the others till they've put 
 up a lot of stuff wrong. Then he makes them pull 
 it down. I think it's to prevent their party going 
 along as quick as his. However, I encourage the 
 other party to disobey him, and they're both going 
 very well. You'd think the measurements for a 
 good sound dug-out would be standardised; but 
 no, we have to invent our own as we go, and there 
 are at least fifty useless ones in the wood that 
 wouldn't stop a pea-shooter. 
 
 SAME PLACE, March 18. 
 
 Only time for a line, as I'm moving my platoon 
 to another spot close by, said to be cushy. Move 
 down to rest in three days. 
 
 Sunday, March 19. 
 
 The gum-boots arrived in the middle of last night, 
 and are excessively nice and useful, as the damp 
 remains in spite of very balmy, pleasant weather. 
 I am still in a wood rather a nice place and safe, 
 I think, as the Boches aren't supposed to have 
 spotted it, and it's not front line at all. It's a 
 small post which I hold with my platoon, and 
 we're going to sleep by day and work by night 
 
 86 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 improving it. Have quite a decent dug-out, with 
 my servant hard by in another; Sergt. C. and Cpl. 
 D. a little farther away both good men. We 
 ought not to come in for any strafing at all, and 
 I hope we shall not. 
 
 Some sappers have just shown themselves on 
 the sky-line about 200 yds. away and been whizz- 
 banged, some wounded. Some of the men are 
 hopelessly careless. 
 
 The enclosed two letters from Marchetti 1 and 
 Knowles respectively are rather sad, aren't they? 
 He was a very nice youth, and I always thought 
 it particularly sporting of him, being Greek. He 
 was quite intelligent enough to know the bloodiness 
 of it all, but as I wrote to Knowles, he probably 
 would have thought it good enough. You might 
 keep Marchetti's letter in case his people care to 
 have it, as it must have been about the last he 
 wrote. I'll try and send them a line. 
 
 I also enclose a letter from the wife of a rifleman 
 to whom I wrote on the death of her husband. 
 She's got me mixed up with T., who, I told her, 
 got her husband down and looked after him. 
 
 I enclose a letter from the R.N.C.O. anthologist. 2 
 I'm rather glad to know an authority on Navy 
 matters likes ' England to the Sea.' 
 
 1 2nd Lt. A. Marchetti, killed in action 15 March, 1916. 
 
 * Mr. Geoffrey Callender, who wrote asking to be allowed to 
 include 'England to the Sea' in an anthology he was editing for the 
 Royal Naval College, Osborne. (Realms of Melody, pub. Macmillan 
 and Co.) 
 
 87 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 I got two letters from you in the middle of the 
 night as I came in from perambulating my wood. 
 It was bright and moon-lighty, and except for the 
 ceaseless crack of rifles, a pleasant hour to read 
 them. What a sharp one you are ! I've been 
 trying to conceal about the deerskin waistcoat 
 for ages. It was one of the first things stolen at 
 the rest village, before we started for the trenches, 
 which I was keeping it for. Taken from the bottom 
 of a bag by some one. A sad loss, but luckily 
 the w r eather is now such that one isn't likely to 
 think of such things for months to come. I've 
 been almost too warm the last day or two. 
 
 The only drawback to this place is that there's 
 no water in it, and so far I have not even washed 
 my face; and I am also reduced to rum in my tea 
 instead of milk, which is also absent. Not at all 
 bad tea and rum and it's extraordinary how the 
 men delight in it. It's almost enough to melt a 
 teetotaler. 
 
 The chief interest here is watching aircraft and 
 not letting them spot you. It's rather pretty 
 seeing a squadron in the sky all among the puff- 
 balls of smoke. Yesterday I saw one of ours hit, 
 and it was most exciting to see if he could clear 
 the wood and come down safely. He did. But 
 only just. Hits seem very rare, considering. 
 
 88 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 March 21. 
 
 We go out to-night to rest it is rumoured 
 for three weeks. It really has been a very cushy 
 time, and I've rather enjoyed my private command 
 and the building work. The guns of either side 
 are popping away over us, and we lying doggo 
 in the middle, so to speak, though why we haven't 
 been spotted I can't think. There was a Fokker 
 over us most of the day yesterday, and I spent 
 the time watching him through Mr Clarke's glasses. 
 
 Had about five hours' sleep the night before 
 last and seven hours last night being waked about 
 seven times in the course of it. It's extraordinary 
 how one gets used to going to sleep again : at 
 least I do, whether it's midday or midnight, I'm 
 glad to say; and I don't feel at all sleepy, which 
 is just as well, as on these moves one may not 
 arrive till 2 o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Have had lunch since writing the above, 
 cooked by my servant. He is not a chef, but really 
 the food supplies are always very good, even when 
 the cordon bleu deals severely with them. Now 
 and again one pops out to see how near the shells 
 are bursting an aid to the digestion ! A black- 
 bird sang in an oak last night, as in one of my 
 pomes. I notice several of the men write home to 
 say how they enjoy the birds singing. It is a nice 
 change from high explosives. 
 
 89 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Yesterday I had in to lunch. He's a 
 
 machine-gunner nowadays not attached, but 
 wandering about the Division with his guns. 
 He's a nice youth, far more intelligent than most 
 of them, but very simple. He corresponds, more- 
 over, with my ideas of a gentleman, which all 
 Regular officers do not by any means. He's a 
 good judge of character too a thing I find most 
 of them blind about. They recognise their like 
 and rejoice in the young apes, and that is about 
 all. Of course their like is pretty good; but what 
 they want, and what England in general wants, 
 is an acknowledgment that the less conventional 
 folk are not fools or criminals. 
 
 Same date. Still in the wood. A little later. 
 
 I seem to have become a tremenjus letter writer, 
 while waiting here to be relieved; and besides a 
 letter to you, which I fear won't get posted till 
 to-morrow, IVe written to Frdk., Oscar, and 
 Arthur, 1 and now I'm beginning another letter to 
 you again. Not that there's anything to tell you 
 spunk go the bullets in the trees and a machine- 
 gun runs like a swift typewriter, and the flares 
 go up and sich is life. Oh, and a bomber bombs 
 too in the distance. Shan't be in bed till 3 a.m., 
 I guess, and was up at 2 a.m., and also at 5-6 a.m. 
 
 1 See introduction. 
 90 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 this morning. There's toil for you but as a matter 
 of fact there is little to do or to worry one here; 
 and keeping awake a good deal is the hardest part 
 
 of one's job. has already gone off with my 
 
 kit. The servants travel separately with a small 
 handcart. I think I must try and break him of a 
 habit of loudly whistling as he brings in the food. 
 I think it's shyness chiefly. 
 
 March 21, 1916. 
 [To F.G.S.] 
 
 A wood in Flanders. Subaltern visible in dug-out. 
 
 I write with the shells going past from either 
 side, we being safely out of it in the middle of a 
 wood. We go down to-night to rest for some 
 considerable time, and unless shelled on the road 
 should be asleep in our beds behind the lines 
 somewhere about 3 a.m. It's really been a cushy 
 time since the last strafe. 
 
 Rather sad about Marchetti, isn't it? I got a 
 letter from him one night to say he had joined 
 
 the Batt, and one from K. the next to say 
 
 he'd been killed instantly while taking up his 
 first working party. I liked him. He was intelli- 
 gent and cheerful, and to die for a country you 
 admire, though it is not your own, seems extra 
 gallantry. 
 
 I think some arm-chair criticism by somebody 
 H 91 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 who has been out should be most salutary. I 
 suppose one is bound to get a biggish residue of 
 confirmed shirkers in a country that has been 
 taught to hate militarism and has not been taught 
 to realise war. As for Peers they will be Peers, 
 I suppose. Nothing beats me more often than 
 the fact that not only Peers but whole classes of 
 men have never even heard of the things which 
 you and I think are the things. I doubt if - 
 ever heard of Henry James, for example, but he 
 breeds West Highland terriers enthusiastically 
 enough. We at least acknowledge the existence 
 of West Highland terriers. 
 
 I wish we were rather more open to ideas. I'm 
 thinking of shell-proof dug-outs at the moment 
 their value and the absence of them for no ascer- 
 tainable reason, except that we are so happy-go- 
 lucky. They go with the Henry James, almost, 
 and the way you wear your cap-badge with the 
 West Highland terriers. And war is war, and the 
 amateur view of it wrong. There should be no 
 amateurs of war there, at any rate, the Boches 
 are right. 
 
 These views are prompted by some mud blowing 
 over from the last shell, and may not be as pondered 
 as they should be. Anyhow, I'd best come to an 
 end for the present. Do hurry up and get well, 
 Fred. 
 
 92 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 March 22. 
 
 Arrived after a peaceful but most weary walk 
 at 3 a.m. Bed at 4. Heavy bombing at 4.30, 
 for what seemed hours. Go farther from the line 
 to-morrow. 
 
 REST VILLAGE, March 24. 
 
 We've got here, all very tired, after doing about 
 ten miles in eight hours ! Snowing again, bust it, 
 but lucky we are here, quite comfortable. I have 
 a bed by myself in a farmhouse, and we mess in 
 another. Gum-boots invaluable in the snow. 
 
 March 25 or 26. 
 
 I sent you off a scrap yesterday, and fr don't 
 rightly know that I've got any more news for you 
 to-day. We really are rather in luck to be out of 
 the snow in quite a comfortable farm, and it's to 
 be hoped that by the end of the month, when we 
 move on, it will be spring again. Said to be a 
 very cushy sector. I told you I had a bed very 
 comfortable in a small brick-floored room off the 
 farm kitchen. I get hot coffee in the morning, 
 which is rather luxurious; and the people are 
 cheery, which is pleasant, when you are thrust 
 upon them. 
 
 93 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 March 27. 
 
 Heard last night that my leave starts on 29th, 
 which means that I shall be back some time on 
 30th. I don't go into the trenches in between, 
 so there should be no question about this except 
 for the ordinary intervention of Providence. 
 
 I get seven clear days in England apparently. 
 
 Sunday, April g. 
 
 Here I am back again where I told you, and 
 things seem to have gone fairly well, though two 
 of D Coy. officers seem to have managed to get 
 slightly injured in the time. I got back rather 
 brilliantly, really. Neither of the others turned 
 up, and the crossing was excellent, as I wrote in 
 my card from Boulogne, where later I saw the 
 Sussex just below me with the whole of her stern 
 blown off. Didn't leave till 7.30 p.m. and arrived 
 at my first possible station about 12, but only 
 woke up to find the train about to move out, so 
 got out at the next one, which anyway was nearer. 
 Pitch dark and no knowledge from anybody as 
 to where the Batt. was, and another youth of the 
 Brigade and I got the R.T.O. Cpl. to find us beds, 
 which he did in a cottage opposite quite good 
 bed and breakfast at 8 a.m., and pay ' ce que 
 vous voulez/ after which we got on to a hay waggon, 
 
 94 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 meandered along the road till I met a Transport 
 Corporal, who told me where the Batt. was, and 
 took my pack for me. Got in about 10 a.m., and 
 was able to laugh at the other two old soldiers 
 who had not applied at the War Office, had started 
 the day before, and had wandered about all night 
 trying to find the Batt., which is at present out 
 of the trenches in support. It's a beautiful sunny 
 day, and if it weren't for the noise of guns would 
 be a very nice day for trotting about. 
 
 Monday. Couldn't get finished for the post, 
 which went off soon after I arrived. Another 
 beautiful morning. I have a hut to myself. My 
 little Blighters mostly seem to be flourishing. 
 We don't go into actual trenches for several days, 
 but have working parties nothing like so bad 
 though as t'other place. The wood is beginning 
 to look green in parts and the sun shines. The 
 land is wonderfully tilled more forward than ours 
 the women, I suppose, doing most of the work. 
 
 THE TRENCHES (IN RESERVE). April 12. 
 
 It's just slopping down on to the hut tent arrange- 
 ment in which I set in a wood, and the damp is 
 very considerable. So, however, is the peaceful- 
 ness, which is a most pleasant change from the 
 part of the line we used to be in. You'd hardly 
 realise here that you were in the firing zone, except 
 
 95 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 for an occasional noise of guns, and at the end of 
 a few days we go back into camp again. I've 
 never had such a quiet working party as I con- 
 ducted the night before last two shells a couple 
 of hundred yards away and that was all. I dare say 
 it was a good thing to start in a really bad bit; 
 and I don't think I exaggerated it as a new-comer, 
 
 for was saying yesterday that even last winter 
 
 the first winter didn't compare with it from 
 the point of view of unpleasantness, even allowing 
 for the much longer time they used to spend in the 
 trenches. 
 
 I don't think there is much news we haven't 
 really done anything and I expect we shan't. 
 
 Horticulture has begun among the troops, and 
 consists chiefly of digging up violets and cowslips 
 and sticking them in the roofs of their dug-outs, 
 together with a suitable inscription and a few 
 boughs of palm or something similar. I'm not 
 quite sure that I'm able to admire it, but it serves 
 to amuse them, I suppose, if it does nothing else. 
 
 April 13. 
 
 Got your first real letter last night. The sun 
 is shining at intervals this morning, though I'm 
 afraid it's going to rain again. Nothing at all to 
 tell you since yesterday. D. has gone off to his 
 staff job and T. and I are alone in the wood, M. 
 
 96 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 occupying a post elsewhere, C. having been lent 
 temporarily to another Coy. 
 
 Now I must censor some platoon letters and 
 then go and see some work the men are doing. It 
 is most peaceful here and I hope will remain so. 
 Don't go properly into the trenches until the end 
 of next week. 
 
 April 14. 
 
 I had another peaceful working party last night, 
 tho' further along the line I'm afraid one of our 
 Coys, got it rather. Raining again, bust it. 
 
 April 15. 
 
 The working parties seem most peaceful so far, 
 and quite pleasant nights. 
 
 April 18. 
 
 We have got back to rest camp, arriving last 
 night; but it doesn't amount to much the same 
 working parties and a good deal further to go. 
 The Boches have been rather more active with 
 our trenches too, bust them, but it can't be helped. 
 Also I get the job nightly, being the only subaltern 
 left in the Coy. at present. Our casualties haven't 
 been many though. One of our officers had a very 
 
 97 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 lucky wound yesterday shrapnel burst right over 
 him in the trench and he was only hit twice in the 
 hand once right through the palm, the other 
 knocking a finger nearly off. That really is lucky, 
 and he went off very well pleased with himself. 
 
 Must finish this quick as there's much work in 
 the rest camp. 
 
 April 20. 
 
 To-day is bright and windy and, I think, 
 threatening snow. I never saw such a pays. It 
 poured all last night hail and hurricane. Luckily 
 I had nothing to do either by day or night, and 
 played bridge after dinner. 
 
 I cannot quite chuck my cold it's no worse, 
 but remains muddy, and this morning I distinctly 
 feel a slight sensation of what might be lumbago. 
 Comes from sleeping in draughty floors in this 
 yowling weather, I suppose. Very slight and 
 nothing to worry about. 
 
 I'll try and give you a plan of day's doings 
 next time, if there are any doings. But really and 
 truly they are very dull. People roll into your 
 hut and roll out again. I got up late for break- 
 fast censored letters and read a short story book 
 by O. Henry, who is really very good had lunch 
 and a bath in the afternoon hot shower bath in 
 a dirty little hut more reading dinner bridge. 
 A lazy and luxurious day. 
 
 98 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Good Friday, April 26. 
 
 Yesterday I wrote you a fairly long and, I 
 expect, a fairly dull letter, at the end of which 
 my back became so lumbagoey that I had to call 
 in the Medicine Man, who rubbed me with some- 
 thing and put on a mustard plaster, and this morn- 
 ing it's a good deal better, though not quite gone. 
 It makes one feel about 95 to be put on in two 
 pieces at an angle of 45 deg. I suppose it's these 
 beestje winds and lying on a draughty floor. T. 
 and I dined together it being B.'s turn to take 
 the working party, luckily, as I could not have 
 done it. Then I got into bed with my hot bottle 
 (used for the first time, and very pleasant) and 
 read The Woman in White till about u, when 
 I slept. This morning it is fine, but cold and 
 windy, and I think detestable. I fancy we go up 
 on Easter Sunday, by which time I should be all 
 right again. I haven't ' gone sick ' once yet, and 
 don't want to; I prefer to leave it to the Babes 
 and not have it attributed to my venerable years ! 
 Which it isn't, as, at no age, did cold and mud 
 agree with me. 
 
 Easter Sunday 
 
 It's fine after about three days' incessant rain, 
 and my back is distinctly better, tho' somewhat 
 weakly in parts still. Also the cold is better to-day. 
 
 99 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Some warm weather would probably make them 
 both vanish. I've really hardly been out of this 
 hut since the first day, as my back was not con- 
 ducive to walking about, nor was the rain; and 
 so my news really and truly is limited. D. and C. 
 both returned yesterday; so now we shall have 
 our full complement of officers in C Coy. six, 
 in fact. 
 
 A Lieut, named Butler came to dinner quite 
 an amusing man I believe he's a Fellow of St 
 John's, Oxford, but didn't cross-examine him 
 one of the clever family of Butlers. He intelli- 
 gently talked a lot of nonsense. 
 
 Bother, I've been interrupted, and now there 
 isn't much time to write before post goes. I know 
 there were several things I wanted to tell you, 
 but can't recall them. 
 
 Easter Monday. 
 
 Just a line from the tranchees, which are exceed- 
 ingly damp but, so far, very quiet. By the time 
 you get this I shall in all probability be out again, 
 as I have been selected as the next victim for the 
 Technical school, which, I think, I told you about. 
 This means being away for a fortnight, roughly, 
 learning how to form fours, etc. The C.O. almost 
 apologised for sending me, and said if I find it too 
 impossible, would I let him know; but he thought 
 
 IOO 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 it might amuse me. I said if it was to be regarded 
 merely as copy, perhaps it might. So there we are, 
 ind the only consolation is that you needn't worry 
 for a fortnight. Back nearly well cold much 
 better. It's not a special insult being sent to this 
 place an officer has to go about monthly from 
 the Batt.; it's merely fatuous, and you're liable 
 to be pounced on if you've seen the doctor, as I 
 had for my back. I am too sleepy to write, having 
 only had two-and-a-half hours last night. 
 
 April 26. 
 
 Rode over to this place yesterday from the 
 trenches. Lovely day to-day but am so sleepy 
 from the trenches and having a day of exercise 
 that I'm hardly awake enough to write coherently. 
 Back practically cured, and cold very near it. 
 I have a room in a farmhouse (rather like our 
 larder) : the other fourteen officers in tents. I 
 think it will be fairly amusing and good for me, 
 perhaps, because I shan't be able to think I'm more 
 incompetent than the subalterns of other regi- 
 ments judging from those present. Will write 
 more to-morrow. Here for a fortnight far from 
 the strafe. 
 
 101 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Thursday, April 27. 
 
 Still nice weather, but almost too sleepy for 
 words and early rising and many parades; that's 
 all my news really and truly. There's a rum col- 
 lection of temporary officers here some very 
 pleasant. I don't think there's anything they 
 teach one that I don't know about which fact 
 I'm rather glad to know, as never having been 
 to one of these places, I thought I might be even 
 more iggerant than I am. - I sleep very peace,, 
 fully in my farm bed, and we take our meals 
 in a hut together. The rest of it is rather like 
 Dotheboys Hall winder W-I-N-D-E-R go and 
 clean the winders. We are a rum people. 
 
 I feel quite youthful, however, as there are 
 several gray-headed officers at the school. I can't 
 write to you am very well it's just slipsiness. 
 I rather fancy our trenches were strafed a bit 
 yesterday, but haven't heard details. 
 
 April 28. 
 
 Still nice weather. We are working very hard 
 all day, doing all military lore in a fortnight in 
 the most muddle-headed way. 
 
 102 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Sunday, April 30. Still at School. 
 
 You have been minged in letters from this place, 
 but the effect of being lectured all day is extremely 
 soporific, and so is the weather, which continues 
 very nice. The day before yesterday your parcel 
 arrived. The cake I shall start at tea it won't 
 last long with twenty of us ! 
 
 Now I'll tell you about yesterday as it was 
 rather more newsful than the rest of the week. 
 Started with a run, then lectures (the British Army 
 ought to wear a bumble bee as a cap-badge !) then 
 lunch; then walked into the nearest town with 
 the sub-commandant. A good-looking man, very 
 like a pirate-captain to look at. In the town we 
 met the two youths I mentioned as being pleasant, 
 and had tea together in a tea shop at 2 fr.each, if you 
 please, for a very minging tea; then went to have our 
 hairs cut, and with great difficulty found a little 
 Belgian barber in a small side street, who undertook 
 the job in a back sitting-room with a pair of shears 
 such as tailors use to cut heavy cloth with. From 
 there made for the only two baths we could find. 
 Keeping two small zinc baths is a regular occupa- 
 tion in this sort of one-horse town they are 
 planted down in the sort of shed the Standon 
 barber shaves his clients in, with two women to 
 fetch the water in pails, and a queue of British 
 soldiers waiting to plunge in at i fr. 25 each. Not 
 * unprofitable either ! 
 
 103 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Then walked back had dinner and went early 
 to bed, hoping to sleep till about 10 a.m. to-day. 
 Instead, the Boches chose to gas us. I'm rather 
 pleased to have had a mild taste of it, as apparently 
 gas attacks are to be expected all the summer 
 when the wind is favourable. What happened 
 was that at 12.45 midnight I heard a terrific bom- 
 bardment open, followed by the gas alarm signals, 
 in the distance, which is considerable. Being 
 very sleepy and fairly sure that we were not gas- 
 able here, I went to sleep again, hoping it was not 
 the R.B.s getting it. Twenty minutes later I woke 
 to hear some one shouting ' Get on your gas helmets 
 at once/ and to find my room full of gas, which 
 was pouring into the window and not, of course, 
 going out again. Bustled into helmet, which is 
 very difficult to adjust properly to pyjamas, and 
 heard the captain in the next room coughing and 
 choking and calling for another helmet. Took 
 him my reserve one just in time, I think. His 
 servant was crouching on the floor in a great fright; 
 and the pirate captain was cheerily dressing in 
 the next room all the doors opening in on the 
 one room. Bustled out as soon as possible in 
 pyjamas and aquascutum and stood about in 
 the night air while the gas blew by. Of course 
 it was exceedingly dissipated when it got here, 
 but it took twenty minutes to float by, and was 
 quite unpleasant, especially in the house, and 
 shows how vital these unpleasant helmets are. 
 
 104 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 I got quite a headache in the twenty minutes, 
 besides breathing like a grampus. Found a farm 
 hand wandering about without one, but the Com- 
 mandant assured me that these Belgians have all 
 acquired them, mostly by theft from our men, and 
 will risk going about in the gas without them just 
 in order to get another from some charitable person ! 
 
 Nobody suffered here except from want of 
 sleep as we stood to for four hours after that, 
 the men playing football from 35 a.m.; a thing 
 which I am sure would annoy the Boches if they 
 could see it. We hear this morning that the attack 
 was a failure and mostly on our left but ap- 
 parently a good many people and cows have been 
 gassed including some in the next farm. 
 
 As I say, it's just as well to have tried it mildly 
 like this, as it leaves one none the worse and con- 
 siderably wiser. It was an extraordinarily bright 
 idea of the Boches, and the first use of it must 
 have been exceedingly ghastly for us. 
 
 Am very fitly now, and the only nuisance is 
 that my eyes are still tiresome and the right one 
 will see black spots at intervals. 
 
 May 3. 
 
 We've had a beautiful warm morning followed 
 by a thunderstorm, which has made it cooler. I 
 shan't mind how hot it keeps. 
 
 105 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 It's funny being up here in sound of the guns 
 and within reach of the gas quite safely and 
 listening to interminable lectures. The line of 
 country through which the gas passed is rather 
 curious the clover blackened and killed as if 
 by a hard frost 75 per cent, of the cows knocked 
 out, and so on. 
 
 Some of the lectures, by experts, are inter- 
 esting, and we had a most excellent first-aid 
 lecture quite the best I've heard on that subject. 
 
 (To his Mother.) April 30. 
 
 I'm afraid I've been a very bad correspondent 
 since I returned from my leave, and don't think 
 I've ever thanked for the very nice parcel you 
 sent. But somehow coming back to this existence 
 put me off letter-writing, and now I'm at a school 
 some way behind the lines doing a sort of general 
 course. The school being here, somebody has to 
 be sent from each Battalion in the Division every 
 month, and it came to my turn this time. The 
 weather is very nice, and, of course, it is healthier 
 than the trenches; otherwise I think I prefer the 
 latter, as I fear I never did like schools at any 
 time, and find them as boring as ever in my old 
 age. However, it's rather a different sort from 
 most, and last night, or at i a.m. this morning, 
 we were gassed in bed, and had to struggle choking 
 
 106 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 into those smoke helmets and hustle out in our 
 pyjamas. The Germans certainly do have some 
 nasty ideas. 
 
 I think there are some pretty hot times ahead, 
 but don't get worried by newspaper reports or 
 lack of letters. 
 
 Now I think I'd better drore to a close, with 
 much love to my best of mothers and all the others. 
 I think I'm beginning to agree with Dr Watts, that 
 we were not made to bark and bite like dogs. 
 
 May 4. 
 
 Am here for another week, and then I believe 
 the Batt. is out for some time, so cushiness is 
 ahead. 
 
 Saturday, May 6. 
 
 I have put you off with minking scrabs. It's 
 still most beautiful weather, largely wasted sitting 
 in a stuffy hut listening to balderdash. However, 
 it is very nice and I hope it'll continue. C Coy. 
 won't be in the trenches for at least ten days, I 
 suppose, tho' there may be a working party or 
 so to take up towards the middle of next week. 
 
 107 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Sunday 7. 
 
 The Irish business is rather sickening. It makes 
 me disgusted to see these papers going on with their 
 party politics over everything. Personally, I 
 greatly doubt if any Government of any sort is 
 going to finish this war. The Army is going to 
 do it by its intelligent giving of battle, and I wish 
 there were more intelligence. Still, there's probably 
 more than one thinks sometimes. 
 
 May 9. 
 
 Just a line to say I've arrived back at the Coy. 
 in a wood out of which we go almost at once 
 into a still quieter place. Rode back from the 
 school yesterday in a pouring rain at the end of 
 my examination, which did not strain my brain 
 excessively. 
 
 T. is on leave and D. just going. We don't 
 seem to have had many casualties at all, and the 
 Batt. did not get that gas which we did. 
 
 May 12. 
 
 Here we are in a rest camp, and I got up at 9 
 and had a hot bath and shaved and dressed outside 
 in a beautiful summer atmosphere, which made it 
 
 108 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 the pleasantest rising I've yet had out here. I 
 rather fancy no tranchees for some time, but one's 
 never quite sure about that. 
 
 I'm going to borrow a horse if I can and ride 
 
 in to this afternoon, and buy myself some 
 
 boots. 
 
 This camp is a series of huts side by side on a 
 hill, and you see everybody all day. I have already 
 chatted with about twenty officers and men this 
 morning. 
 
 May 14. 
 
 The country here has changed extraordinarily 
 in the last month all the leaves out and the trees 
 flourishing again. The day before yesterday I 
 rode into the big town near here thro* a village 
 about the size of Puckeridge that is mostly ruined 
 by shells. It was strange to see babies rolling 
 about among the fallen bricks and mortar, and 
 old women sitting out in the sun beside the remains 
 of their cottages. How these old people must hate 
 the Germans, whom they have seen twice bringing 
 desolation upon them. This morning I started 
 at 9.30 a.m. with two others to inspect a place 
 the Batt. might have to go to in an emergency. 
 We went by muddy lanes and tracks (it rained 
 nearly twenty-four hours yesterday) and emerged 
 on the place, which is a field full of orchids and 
 forget-me-nots in deep wet grass rather pleasant 
 
 109 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 and peaceful though it wouldn't be if we had to 
 go there as a Batt., for the Boches would probably 
 do some shelling. Then we came back by the main 
 road through rather a pretty little country town 
 that has also been terribly shelled. There was a 
 big girls' school at one end of it half in ruins. 
 I don't know when that happened whether it was 
 at the start of the war or not, and whether the 
 demoiselles had to flee hurriedly along the roads 
 as did so many other folk round here. 
 
 All the small shops in this sort of place have been 
 turned into small grocery shops for the Tommies 
 and you see announcements like ' Coffee and 
 Chipps,' or ' Egs Milk Buter Chipps.' Chipps 
 are, I suppose, potatoes, and always seem to be 
 purchasable. You see Tommies sitting with 
 their legs dangling out of top-floor windows 
 windows as once was and guns nosing out of 
 barns, and an armoured car, perhaps, half sunk 
 in a flower bed, waiting for the Push. 
 
 Fine weather makes the country far pleasanter 
 it's stiffly laid out in avenues of trees like the 
 maps they use at Hythe, and it certainly makes 
 war seem more fantastic and unreal. 
 
 Got back, had lunch, and then a hot shower bath. 
 The shower-baths consist of a place quite as small 
 as the Billygoat's house, in which there is just 
 room for two people to stand together, and you 
 generally have to wait half an hour to get in. 
 
 The old soldiers whose time is up are rather 
 no 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 annoyed at being compelled to serve on not un- 
 naturally, perhaps but it is obvious that they 
 cannot be spared, being each worth several recruits. 
 I can't write interesting letters. The sort of 
 enforced slackness plus the idea that you must 
 not say anything the censor might object to, 
 rather dulls me. 
 
 (To his Mother.) May 14. 
 
 This is my wedding day. I went for a longish 
 walk through muddy lanes and shelled villages. 
 The weather has turned wet again, otherwise the 
 country would be looking rather pretty all the 
 trees in leaf, and orchids and kingcups and forget- 
 me-nots blooming in the meadows. In fact, it is 
 looking pretty in a formal way and where it isn't 
 ruined. Some of the hedges, for instance, have 
 autumn tints instead of spring ones, caused by 
 the gas passing through them. 
 
 Yesterday I went for a ride to the largest town 
 in the neighbourhood again through shelled 
 villages where babies still sprawl among the ruins. 
 The Company gee has taken to stumbling of late, 
 bother him, otherwise he is a fine powerful beast 
 and jumps well. Of course on pavd especially 
 stumbling is a great nuisance. 
 
 Are you keeping fit? My sister will want to 
 collect a Red Cross fund for herself if she does 
 much more severe work. 
 
 in 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 May 17. 
 Just going up a beautiful day. 
 
 May 1 8 (I think). 
 
 It's a perfect day and I'm seated outside my 
 dug-out in shorts made from my breeches cut down, 
 shirt and gum-boots, not to mention tin hat and tie. 
 
 My servant is really very good quiet but most 
 useful and attentive. He has just baled out about 
 ten buckets of water out of my dug-out (below 
 the floor) and he does this about twice a day. 
 Just as he finished, two Riflemen came up and 
 were disappointed to find none left as they wanted 
 to make tea with it ! Apparently the bottom of 
 my dug-out is also a drinking water reservoir. 
 This is quite a good dry trench. I was up from the 
 time of arrival till 4 a.m. this morning but have 
 the rest of the day to sleep in. Have already seen 
 this morning the Brigadier, I., D., a new padre 
 attached to the Batt., who is a brother of A. B., 
 and several other people who have been up through 
 the tranchees. Very quiet, I'm glad to say only 
 aeroplanes being strafed overhead. T. said he 
 went to the trench exhibition in London when he 
 was home on leave, and found he had never seen 
 anything at all like it before. Some old soldiers 
 apparently show people round, and while he 
 
 112 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 T. in mufti was explaining the workings of a 
 Lewis gun to a friend, an old gentleman said crush- 
 ingly, ' If you'll kindly allow this soldier ' (point- 
 ing to an attendant) ' to explain the gun, we shall 
 all benefit by it.' 
 
 I think this is the 20th May. It's still beautiful 
 weather, and if the Boches would cease whizz- 
 banging it would not be unpleasant sitting in the 
 trenches. At the moment I've retired to my dug- 
 out, which, I think, is whizz-bang proof, and two 
 martens are trying to flutter in at the door. I 
 don't know if they've inspected it in my absence 
 and decided they would like to build there. The 
 frogs green ones are yulling from a rather 
 stagnant pond just behind, and birds are cheeping 
 around. Cpl. A. has just gone by carrying some 
 timber for a gas-proof dug-out which he and I are 
 constructing by the aid of our united brains. This 
 is a few minutes later, and the Boches have left 
 off whizz-banging. Since lunch-time I have been 
 listening to L, chatting about ' Intelligence/ 
 in the Company dug-out, and falling asleep at 
 intervals. When he got up to go off, I pulled 
 myself together and came over here to write. Not 
 that I have very much to tell you. Oh dear, I've 
 got to shoot off to censor the men's letters. You 
 needn't picture strafes at present. 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Monday, May 22. 
 
 I am still rather sleepy from a seventeen hour 
 day, started by being on duty from 2.30 a.m. 
 7.30 a.m. In the course of it we got a few whizz- 
 bangs over only a very few slight hits and in 
 the evening the unfortunate M. tried to blow 
 himself and two other men up with a rifle grenade 
 none of them serious, however, luckily. It was 
 a case in which I might almost be accused of the 
 evil eye, for at the moment I was standing with 
 Sergeant B. about 50 yds. away, saying, 'I dislike 
 rifle grenades. I always expect them to blow up 
 everybody round and I never expect them to blow 
 up the Boches.' Which happened the next instant; 
 but, as I say, it was a lucky business on the whole. 
 Having started at 2.30 on Sunday morning I came 
 off at 3.30 a.m. this morning and slept till 12, 
 when some bumping on the next line woke me. 
 Still beautifully warm, and I go about with bare 
 legs and shorts, which isn't bad in May, is it? 
 On the whole, this is a very nice trench and simply 
 doesn't bear comparison with Hooge, so far as 
 I've seen it. I am very fit and the eyes very 
 fairly good. 
 
 Here in the early morning one sees jays and 
 pheasants and lots of smaller birds, and green 
 frogs, and heaps of rats, and a semi-wild cat 
 occasionally. I imagine wild life is on the increase, 
 
 114 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 because the No Man's Land is becoming rather 
 jungly, and except for the shells, of course, very 
 peaceful. So is the country immediately behind 
 the trenches. 
 
 One of my platoon, who was always writing 
 home to say he was in the thick of it (when he 
 wasn't), has been hit slightly and will be enormously 
 happy, I think, to go home with tales of the peril. 
 
 May 23 (?). 
 
 Another scrab, but I have such long nights 
 somehow only three hours' sleep last night that 
 one dozes off most of the day and is not, as you 
 know, particularly brilliant ! S. of the Buffs 
 whom I met at the Technical School, came up last 
 night and spent last night with us. I had coffee 
 with an artillery officer at 7.30 a.m., breakfast 
 with S., lunch with D. all visitors to the trenches. 
 It's a heavy, still day very quiet, a thunderstorm 
 due, I think. 
 
 T. has gone off (temporarily) to the Divisional 
 Staff, but I'm afraid they'll keep him when they 
 find out that he is good. 
 
 We shall be out by the time you get this for 
 several days almost double the usual. 
 
 115 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 May 26. 
 
 Just a line from camp. Very damp march. 
 Breakfasted at n to-day and post goes at 12. 
 Nice weather again after very sloshy night. 
 
 May 28. 
 
 As I have had a whole night in bed, being the 
 first for about ten days, I ought to be able to write 
 more than a mere scrab. The weather is very 
 pleasant and the honeysuckle is coming out in 
 the wood, and yesterday I picked a bunch of 
 yellow irises, buttercups, and a lot of new young 
 red foliage of oak and sycamore. The only draw- 
 back to being out of the trenches is the quantity 
 of working parties, which are a bore, but roll on, 
 as the riflemen say. 
 
 A.B. 1 has been appointed to the O.C.ship of C 
 Coy. in Tatham's absence. 
 
 A youth in my platoon who was in the 
 
 wrote in a letter I had to censor that he wished he 
 
 was back in the as the Batt. was a wash-out, 
 
 all wrong. I had to send for him and ask if he 
 thought it a polite thing to say of his Batt., and 
 discovered, of course, that he resents . the stricter 
 discipline. I tried to explain that it wasn't done 
 
 1 Captain Andrew Buxton, The Rifle Brigade, killed in action, 
 June, 1917. 
 
 116 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 for fun entirely, but to beat the enemy, but I'm 
 not sure if I convinced him. Discipline is an infernal 
 bore. There is no doubt that some of the new 
 Batts. are not particular enough about really vital 
 matters, and the men don't of themselves seem 
 able to distinguish what you must be strict about 
 and what you mustn't. If only one could reduce 
 discipline to its absolutely necessary elements 
 and insist on those only, we should be nearer the 
 ideal. 
 
 D. goes off on a gun course to-day which will 
 leave us short again, with the corresponding extra 
 work. I don't know why they can't keep an extra 
 subaltern or two when there are such hundreds 
 about. 
 
 Tuesday, 29 or 30. 
 Rather stupid of them to send - - to the 
 
 but it is the sort of thing that happens. If any- 
 body gets hit they are quite likely to be sent out 
 again to some different Batt, which I think is a 
 great mistake. 
 
 I didn't have a working party last night and 
 had another good sleep instead, but there seems 
 a fair amount doing this morning, which does not 
 leave me very much time to write before the post 
 goes at 2 o'clock. 
 
 Mr Faviel a copy thereof is being passed 
 117 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 round the Batt. with an inscription (by the D 
 youth, I fancy) : ' To all officers for information 
 and necessary action/ which is one of the Orderly 
 Room phrases attached to reports. 
 
 I feel as if I wrote you the dullest letters and 
 can't help it, and Frdk.'s statement that my 
 letters are the most interesting reading he has at 
 present is an unblushing lie, unless indeed he reads 
 nothing else, which is quite likely. 
 
 Still Tuesday. 
 
 I wish I could write you nice letters like you 
 write me; but when I take up the pencil I seem 
 to be just as dull as when I don't, or duller. 
 
 The sun has come out and it's not a bad day. 
 Working party to-night, blow it, as I don't amuse 
 myself much digging in the dark, though I like it 
 by day. 
 
 31. Working party no bad last night fine 
 night told off the sappers successfully. Another 
 party to-night, bust it. I'll have to finish this to- 
 morrow. 
 
 June i. Have to send this off in a hurry, and 
 I meant it to be a long one, but was out till 2 a.m. 
 and busy this morning. Have you seen the Batt. 
 mentioned in despatches? 
 
 118 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 June 2. 
 
 I had to hustle off a letter yesterday which I 
 had meant to be a long one, as there was not much 
 time left. We spent the morning dodging shrapnel 
 which the unpleasant Boches put over what should 
 have been our sequestered spot. Both B. brothers 
 and Brown were nearly laid out, being within a few 
 feet, and we were all within a few yards. The 
 padre had one bullet put through a letter he had 
 just written to his wife and found another in his 
 surplice. Souvenirs ! In the afternoon I went 
 for a ride on the Coy. horse, who skidded on his 
 nose for about twenty yards on the way back. 
 Luckily I had just decided that he was going to 
 fall, so managed to jerk him up again. It's a 
 troublesome trick in a fine horse otherwise. He 
 used to belong to Prince Arthur of Connaught. 
 After tea I started a trench in which to get if any 
 more shrapnel came along; also had my hair cut, 
 but no digging party at night. 
 
 To-day we move not exactly into the trenches,- 
 but not far off. 
 
 Our guns are making a horrible row, deafening 
 one, which accounts for the spasmodicalness of 
 this. 
 
 Did you see the new C.-in-C.s' despatch (in the 
 papers on Tuesday last)? It's not very exciting, 
 but it describes the attack at Hooge and the Batt. 
 is mentioned. The list of those mentioned looks 
 
 119 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 long, but as a matter of fact there is only one other 
 in our Division mentioned, so it is an honour of 
 sorts. It's still beautiful weather. 
 
 June 4. 
 
 It is my birthday. It's a little cooler to-day but 
 not bad, and as a matter of fact the nights are the 
 more important, as that is when we work. There 
 is very much to do, which I like, as it's less boring 
 to have work, and we also have some small excite- 
 ments were whizz-banged yesterday and had a 
 great artillery display last night over our heads 
 almost entirely. ' Noise, noise, noise ! ' 
 
 My servant is on leave and I realise how good 
 he is now that I'm doing with somebody else. 
 Cpl. A. has been made a Sergt., and we are per- 
 furiously putting up really good dug-outs together. 
 Some shells are coming over, bust the Boches ! 
 The noise puts me off. 
 
 Still June 4. 
 
 I am ashamed of my scrabs, tho' it really is a 
 little difficult at times, what with candles and 
 other people jabbering and slipsiness and such 
 not to mention being an idle letter writer at the 
 best of times. 
 
 120 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 The weather has turned suddenly muddy, bust 
 it, as it's very easy to be too cool in the trenches 
 even in summer. 
 
 June 5. Not much done yet and very near post 
 time. It's turned Aprilly to-day sharp showers 
 and sunshine. 
 
 June 7. 
 
 Peaceful day for me to-day Brown being on 
 to-night. I got to bed at 3 a.m., having trotted 
 about since 9 p.m. yesterday. The men are work- 
 ing very well and the only trouble is that we don't 
 stay long enough to finish things properly. 
 
 Yes, awkward about that Boche gain. A place 
 I sat in quietly for four days with my platoon 
 was, I believe, heaped with dead bodies ours 
 and theirs. 
 
 I suppose the Navy business was much better 
 than it seemed at first, and at any rate there wasn't 
 the glib boasting that takes off from some of our 
 other efforts. The main disappointment is that 
 they didn't, and probably couldn't, deliver the 
 sort of blow that might really have hastened the 
 conclusion of the war, for I suppose if Germany 
 had lost her Fleet, she would have had to resign 
 the more absurd of her pretensions. The pro- 
 portion of killed is rather awful : otherwise the 
 casualties are no more than the armies lose in a 
 day's fighting that practically goes unrecorded. 
 
 121 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 June 9. 
 
 This will somehow have to be a scrab, as we 
 have been working all the morning instead of 
 last night, which was very wet. Two padres just 
 come into the dug-out and the jabber is incessant. 
 
 June 10. 
 
 Out to-day a mild showery April one. Got 
 to bed at 3 a.m. to the sound of distant firing, 
 and am not as vigilant as I ought to be when 
 writing to you. We had a fairly exciting day 
 yesterday. Some aggravating gunners, two of them 
 Colonels, who ought to have known better, came 
 into the trench unbeknown to us and began observ- 
 ing over the parapet by day a thing we have 
 been at the utmost pains to prevent our men 
 doing for days past. Just as we found them there, 
 dancing happily about with field-glasses and things, 
 the Boches spotted them too, and opened with 
 whizz-bangs and H.E. Quite hot for half an hour, 
 but nobody hit luckily, though the trench was 
 bashed in in parts the annoying thing is that they 
 have now marked it down as a suitable target. 
 In the evening I had a man hit by a machine-gun 
 and had to roll rapidly down a steep bank in the 
 dark to avoid it myself. Still, it's a very nice 
 change from the last place, especially when one 
 
 122 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 thinks of what is going on there now of which 
 we only get the light in the sky and the heavy 
 boom of the guns. 
 
 June 12. 
 
 The weather has turned to a horrible wet cold 
 slop and it's more like November than June. 
 
 One sees a few roses in shelled gardens climbing 
 among shattered bricks, and the wild flowers are 
 rather numerous in the parts where nobody dare 
 go to cut the hay, and it's too dangerous to pasture 
 animals. Yes, Sgt. A. has got the M.C., and also Sgt. 
 W., and some of the others may get it for Hooge yet. 
 
 The naval news seems to grow better daily. 
 
 I think Howard 1 is justified in his grouse, but, 
 of course, it is even more so in the Regular Batts. 
 and the plums are very strictly preserved. I 
 think before the war ends, the system will have to 
 be altered, or we shall find ourselves working on the 
 odd and probably disastrous view that three 
 months at Sandhurst is more valuable than two 
 years at the Front. However, we generally do 
 end by surrendering our cherished stupidities 
 before it is too late. 
 
 1 Sub- Lieut. Howard Fry, Howe Batt., Royal Naval Division, 
 killed in action, November 16, 1916, my brother. C. H. V. 
 
 123 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 June 14. 
 
 I hope you aren't getting this awful wintry 
 weather. Here there has been heavy rain for 
 about four days on end, and we are extremely 
 lucky to be out of the trenches for it, as it is even 
 stopping work at present. I had one night of it 
 till 3 a.m., the last one-and-a-half hours returning 
 at a walk in a limber all the men wet through 
 long before and I don't want any more. The 
 country is so wet that when I rode with D. to a 
 gas lecture we got our horses in up to the chest 
 and had to leave the road for 100 yds. or more, 
 where it was hopelessly bogged about 10 ft. 
 deep. That was yesterday afternoon. This after- 
 noon I have been talking ' gas ' to the platoon, 
 and told them that if any of No. 12 ever got gassed 
 they would be put on a charge which pleased 
 them, I think. 
 
 i p.m. It's clearing a little and much I like the 
 sun. The padre has just asked me to go for a ride 
 with him, so if I can get a horse this will have to 
 stop. 
 
 June 15. 
 
 It hasn't rained to-day but is beastje cold, and 
 I shall put on my fur-lining for working party 
 to-night. We go and return in a lorry, which 
 
 124 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 makes it a lot better for the men, who always 
 hate to have a long march thrown in. Yesterday 
 I went for a ride with Padre Buxton. We had a 
 very nice ride for three hours. I rode a pack animal 
 rather a nice beast, sturdy, but with a very hard 
 mouth, like most of them. No stumbling, how- 
 ever, which is a great advantage. We had tea 
 at a nice French shop and were joined by the 
 doctor, who rode back with us. Then we changed 
 our time at n p.m. and are now the same as you 
 again, I suppose an hour earlier. 
 
 B. has (temporarily) taken on the bomb squad 
 which was offered to me, but I rather jibbed at it. 
 It means leaving your own platoon and also dealing 
 with weapons which I know I should be absent- 
 minded about at intervals, and I don't altogether 
 believe in being turned on to any mortal thing, 
 whether you're suited for it or not, merely because 
 the authorities don't try to find out who is suited 
 for what, though one doesn't like to refuse if it 
 lets some one else equally unwilling in for it. How- 
 ever, I did offer myself as victim before, and let 
 B. have it this time, as he said he didn't mind in 
 the least. They probably have forty trained 
 bomb officers waiting at Sheppey, forgetting things 
 as fast as they learn them ! 
 
 There seems to be next to no news of the Salient 
 in the papers. The Canadians seem to have had a 
 lot of casualties. But every one is very cheerful 
 over the Russian news, and the war, as usual, is 
 
 125 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 going to end in a month or two. I'm afraid leave 
 is going through very slowly this time, and it's 
 very hard luck on the men. One Sergeant was telling 
 me yesterday that he's only had four days since 
 war started. It's not economy, considering what 
 a strain it puts on everybody, and I don't think 
 people realise that this is a war where for the first 
 time almost there is no rest from risking one's 
 life and limbs least of all, of course, for the 
 rifleman. 
 
 I suppose there are bound to be many and 
 violent happenings this year (not that I know of 
 any). 
 
 June 17. 
 
 The weather has turned fine again, which is 
 rather pleasant, but on the other hand we had 
 one of these middle-of-the-night alarms, gas helmets 
 on, prepare to go up, and all the rest of it, amid 
 a terrific noise of guns, which makes one fairly 
 sleepy next morning. Nothing came of it except 
 sleeping in one's clothes. Also yesterday we had 
 an accident by which one of our best sergeants 
 lost his life. Poor youth, he was a very brisk, 
 well-made, gallant young sergeant, and I remember 
 thinking several times when I happened to be 
 watching him in days past that it was particularly 
 unpleasant to think of any one so splendidly 
 built being knocked to atoms by some of these 
 
 126 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 devilish machines as I saw him yesterday. He 
 was telling me a few days ago that he was going 
 to apply for a commission. It's very sad, and I 
 don't think one gets used to these things. 
 
 Every one is very cheerful about the war at 
 present. 
 
 This is written in snatches of a very fussy 
 morning. 
 
 Sunday 18. 
 
 I really am rather hustled to-day and didn't 
 
 have much time yesterday. Went to Sergt. 's 
 
 funeral about three hours very impressive the 
 C Coy. officers acting as chief mourners came 
 back and had a working party till 4.30 a.m. this 
 morning, since when I've mostly slept. Trenches 
 to-night, so I'm glad I slept most of the morning 
 and had a hot bath; but I've very little time for 
 writing. I've still got to make up accounts 
 I must stop. I shall probably have more time 
 the next few days. I hope so. Nice' weather again. 
 
 Monday, June 20, or else Tuesday 21. 
 (Really Wednesday, June 21 !) 
 
 I got two lines started to you yesterday, and 
 do feel as if I were treating you badly, sending 
 meagre scrabs instead of the long letter I thought 
 
 127 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 might come. But the time I expected didn't come 
 either. We're fairly quiet but excessively busy, 
 and this is the fifth night I haven't been to bed 
 till 3.30 a.m. to 5 a.m., which is too late for me. 
 Coming in was very boring. We had a gas alarm 
 the moment we were up, but no gas against 
 which we are taking great precautions. 
 
 D. is a nice youth, I think, but, of course, being 
 quite fresh to it can't be expected quite to pull his 
 weight for a few days, and, anyhow, we are short 
 handed again as C. is taking over another job 
 temporarily. 
 
 A.B., when he sees a meal approaching, dashes 
 out to look at something and comes back an hour 
 later, and you may be thankful if he hasn't dragged 
 you with him ! But he's very intelligent and 
 pleasant. 
 
 My friend Shafto of the Buffs has got the M.C. 
 for a very gallant deed. I heard this from H., 
 whom I met in the dark on a working party last 
 night. A very pleasing lad. 
 
 Very few shells so far, but it's been beestje 
 cold almost freezing at night and a sort of sunless 
 blight by day. 
 
 Why gets ten days' leave I can't tell. I 
 
 wish I could. 
 
 128 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 June 22. 
 
 Got to bed at 3 a.m. this morning on duty 
 7 a.m. 10 a.m. and n a.m. 12. Shelled for 
 ten minutes then. On duty again to-night 7 p.m. 
 2 a.m. and from 4 a.m. 7 a.m., and probably 
 shan't get to sleep between. So you may imagine 
 I am getting fairly sleepy. This isn't so much 
 grousing as explaining why letters are so muddily 
 small, but you'll forgive it, won't you? 
 
 Out when you get this. Possible change from 
 this part. Mostly quiet except for ten minutes 
 this morning by very heavy shells which rather 
 daze me. Man next me was shivering and quivering 
 the whole time. Nobody hurt. We are exceptionally 
 busy. Last night I was wiring in front for about three 
 hours and had a party of men cutting the long grass 
 with sickles mostly on their stomachs. Rum scene 
 in the moonlight. I always did detest barbed wire. 
 
 I am desperately afraid that this smidge or 
 another equally scribbly smidge will be your 
 birthday letter. 
 
 June 25. 
 
 I'm afraid even three lines really are quite 
 difficult at present, as even if I wrote them (and we 
 have been terribly hustled lately) they aren't always 
 possible to get off. It's a beautiful day to-day and 
 
 we are at , somewhere quite safe at all events. 
 
 129 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 June 26. 
 
 The men are all splendidly cheerful at present 
 and it does one good to watch them at play. It's 
 raining again after a fine Sunday. We are at the 
 same safe place, I think for some little time. 
 We are living in great luxury strawberries and 
 cream. 
 
 June 27. 
 
 It poured last night and nearly flooded us out. 
 No news. 
 
 June 28. 
 
 I do hope that letters are not going to be stopped, 
 as you suggest. I should think that is only one 
 of the many rumours that get about. 
 
 It's just hopelessly wet. We're still at the same 
 place. I had a gallop round a fine big field yester- 
 day and then played rounders and then wrestled 
 with A.D. we each won one round; after which, 
 I am thankful to say, he had sprained his thumb, 
 as in the second one he fell heavily upon me and 
 weighs about fourteen stones. 
 
 130 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 June 30. 
 
 A letter from you to-day, which shows the posts 
 haven't stopped this side at any rate. 
 
 Had quite a pleasant day working party yester- 
 day behind the lines, and played rounders with 
 the men in the evening. Pulled out of bed in 
 middle of night on false alarm, then back again. 
 To-day cold but fine. Shall probably go into 
 nearest town after tea and have hot bath. 
 
 July i. 
 
 Your letters keep coming and I hope my letters 
 keep going. Good news to-day. I expect you'll 
 have heard of it. Not in yet for several days. 
 Weather beautiful. 
 
 July 2. 
 
 It's a beautiful day again to-day, Sunday, and 
 we shift a bit, but our nearest town is still the 
 same as when I was last on leave, which, I think, is 
 not giving away military information. 
 
 Yesterday I inspected a flying place with C., 
 and if we had got there an hour earlier might have 
 had a ride, which it seems rather absurd not to 
 have had hitherto not that I think that I should 
 take to the things at all. 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 The mess gets on very well together. A. D. is 
 so merry and cheerful that he is invaluable at 
 most times. He spends his time seeing that his 
 elders' ties are straight. He is our only boy, and 
 the great value of boys out here is that they can 
 be so much more mercurial than other people 
 which the men like, being babes themselves. The 
 whole army is a collection of brave babies. 
 
 I suppose for the next few months there are 
 bound to be doings. 
 
 This is a hop country and the hops are 15 feet 
 high and rather pleasing. Beautiful sunset last 
 night. 
 
 ]*iy 3- 
 
 Beautiful weather and the news seems good 
 so far. 
 
 July 4. 
 
 Weather fit, self fit. Nothing doing here much. 
 We had a Coy. photograph taken at the last 
 place and I will try and send you a copy. 
 
 My servant has gone sick, I am sorry to say. 
 
 132 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 July 5. 
 
 Heavy rain yesterday, but good night's rest. 
 Lots of rumours flying about, but nothing sub- 
 stantial. Very quiet for us so far. There is a small 
 Bilien goat in the camp here which wanders into 
 the huts to eat things. Rather a pingly one but 
 not bad. 
 
 I saw a passage the other day which I expect 
 you know and like. It's something about ' Be 
 brave and endure for the Lord will protect you 
 until you have finished the service that He requires 
 of you ' something like that, rather fine and 
 suitable for a soldier.* 
 
 July 6. 
 
 Another fine day. Had a rotten time last night. 
 Brown and I took up a working party and some 
 fools of gunners started shelling the Boches, who 
 retaliated while the trench was full of our workers. 
 Result very unfortunate, including the wounding 
 of another of our best sergeants a horrible wound 
 in the thigh. Brown quite good and cool self 
 quite good and cool. Went down with sergeant 
 and stretcher-bearers at the end of it an awful 
 trek for hours got him off about 4 a.m. and myself 
 to bed at 5 a.m. Lots of men do awfully well on 
 
 1 He sent the reference later, I Chron. xxviii. 20, saying, 'Not 
 quite as I thought, but very much.' 
 
 133 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 these occasions, but there should not be any such. 
 No time for more. The poor sergeant was engaged 
 has been out nearly two years and will surely 
 lose his leg if not his life. He was awfully patient 
 going down. 
 
 July 7. 
 
 Just a line to say very fit. Nasty muddy weather 
 again. Much sleep last night. We really get our 
 news from the papers, so you hear before we do. 
 Sergeant A. has been made platoon sergeant of 
 ii platoon, which means I lose him, I regret to 
 say, but I still have the best N.C.O.s. 
 
 July 8. 
 
 I am so sorry to see Huddart has been killed. 
 He was such a nice fellow and they seemed so very 
 happy together. I suppose it was in the advance. 
 
 It's a beautiful day, and I'm sitting in the 
 remains of a huge cellar of a farm not far from 
 the front lines. We got here yesterday after being 
 shelled for about half an hour where we were at 
 the farm. The old farmer's wife and a girl-hand 
 spent the time trying to drive their cows into a 
 shed mostly under shrapnel fire. 
 
 I never saw such coolness and stupidity. Of 
 course whenever a shell fell near the cows scattered, 
 
 134 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 and the women, after a shriek, chased them and 
 got a shell on the other side. Meanwhile the 
 British Army crouched under a wall, sensibly 
 enough. Two cows and a calf were hit, and I 
 expected to see both the women laid out, and 
 shouted in vain to them to leave the cows. They 
 simply would not. 
 
 We marched up here through a very bullety 
 area; but once arrived, it's rather nice, and I have 
 the best dug-out I've ever had, very nearly shell- 
 proof, I should say. There's a moat and ruins of 
 barns and cellars amid which we live with the shells 
 planking around and a continual rattle of machine- 
 guns at night. Two Australian officers came in 
 here an hour ago for a drink pleasant simple 
 souls from Gallipoli and Egypt. 
 
 Spent the morning with Brown counting the 
 contents of a dump. I may send back some more 
 kit sometime, if we move, so don't be surprised 
 if you see it arrive. 
 
 July 9. 
 
 It's another beautiful day, but no letter from 
 you. But praps I shall get two to-night about 
 i a.m. which is when I get it here. There is a 
 moat below my dug-out with green frogs in it. 
 I don't think I have any news. I take my platoon 
 out at night to work in gum-boots in a very muddy 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 ditch, much sniped; but we rather like it as we 
 are on our own without the assistance of any R.E.s, 
 who are always tussome. 
 
 This afternoon we had a few shells, after which 
 I took up my N.C.O.s to see our ditch by daylight; 
 and we crawled about on our stomachs in a hot 
 sun and got quite warm, which is very pleasant. 
 Brown, the two Buxtons, and I are the only mess 
 in this particular ruin, but I have entertained on 
 whiskey and soda-water to-day P. B., K. (Adjutant), 
 O.C. A Coy., M., and several others. Sich is life. 
 D. complained of our absence of leave quite 
 rightly, I think. One in 8-9 months is not really 
 fair. However, the men get less and grouse very 
 little. 
 
 Tell my mother I really will try to write soon. 
 It's bad not to, but I got so sleepy with night work 
 and don't want to get really short in case one had 
 to make an extra effort. 
 
 July ii. 
 
 I got your last night's letter about 4 a.m. this 
 morning after what was an interesting night and for 
 some people a very exciting one. C., with two other 
 officers, led a raiding party into the Boche trenches. 
 The party had been training down below and came 
 up in the moonlight to where we are, as it were, 
 among the ruins of Plashes farm buildings, with 
 
 136 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 blacked faces and labels on their backs to help 
 recognise one another in the dark and armed 
 with knob-kerries and axes and any weapon of 
 their fancy, and stood about till the light, or 
 rather the dark, was right for the fray. Cpl. - , 
 a great hulking savage child, pressed into my 
 hand three packets of woodbines as a parting 
 gift (in case he didn't come back) for a friend of 
 his. They were a fine collection of cheery, excited 
 ruffians, picked volunteers, and went off amid 
 many good lucks. Meanwhile I had to get two 
 platoons into a trench we had been hastily digging 
 in case the Boches retaliated with a heavy bom- 
 bardment, which they did. I sat with them there 
 for about one-and-a-half hours while the ground 
 shook and crash followed crash. Then the raiders 
 trooped back, having done very well. They got 
 into the Boche trenches, the Boches fled, and they 
 burgled their dug-out and rushed back with only 
 one or two casualties. Unfortunately one of D 
 Coy. officers and one of our very best stretcher- 
 bearers were killed after they'd got back into our 
 trench, by a Minenwerfer very bad luck. 
 
 Then we had the raiders back in our dug-out 
 to have drinks, all of them with different stories 
 of what had happened and how many Boches 
 they had killed, and adventures in the wire, and 
 the nature of the Boche trenches. Then the casual- 
 ties arrived. I fancy I got to bed about 7 a.m.; 
 but I was too sleepy to be sure. Slept till 2 p.m., 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 and am so far having a peaceful day. I don't 
 much approve of these raids you take too many 
 risks to achieve a doubtful end. Still, it went 
 all right, which is satisfactory. 
 
 Tell my mother not to worry. I don't suppose 
 the Push is very much worse than anything else 
 really, and so far we are not in it. 
 
 July 10. 
 
 Another nice day and I did get two letters from 
 you at about midnight when coming in from 
 digging. No news at all the general outlook 
 seems good, doesn't it? I have just lent Frdk.'s 
 rifle 1 to E. to do some sniping with. He is a very 
 fine shot and stationed at present where sniping 
 is possible. Poor youth, he has two brothers 
 wounded this month, and one may be killed 
 apparently, but he doesn't know. 
 
 Must stop at this point. 
 
 July 12. 
 
 I enclose two photographs one of the Coy, 
 and one of n and 12 platoons, taken at a farm 
 we were at, some way back, a fortnight ago. I 
 have pointed out the leading lights. 
 
 I am sorry to say that Say, one of the men hit 
 
 1 A telescopic sighted rifle lent him by Frdk. 
 
 138 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 on the raid, and once a corporal in my platoon, 
 has died since, leaving a wife and two children. 
 He was a very fine fellow. K., who brought him 
 in, said Say implored him not to do it lest K. 
 should get hit. The doctor, too, said he was one 
 of the best patients he had seen. It seems to me 
 the children of such a man should have every 
 chance. He was very cool and quiet-mannered, 
 and would have done extremely well, I think. 
 Last night Brown had another of our corporals 
 shot through the heart also about 22 and married, 
 with children. 
 
 There is an awful waste of our best men just 
 at present; but I suppose it can't be helped. 
 
 July 14. 
 
 I send you a letter pretty often though I have 
 no news to send. I fear one Batt. got badly hit 
 and you will see some names shortly. 
 
 I meant to write reams to you, but I have to 
 chuck it right now. I'm going to try and answer 
 your letters later. 
 
 July 15. 
 
 Our part here is lined with Minenwerfers, and Cpl. 
 D. and six men nearly got laid out by one to-day. 
 A tiny bit fell on my knuckle about 300 yds. away, 
 L 139 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 but one gets too many souvenirs of that sort to 
 keep them. 
 
 I think the idea of being censored makes me so 
 dull. 
 
 Sunday 16. Now I shan't get a very long letter 
 written after all. Had a rather exciting carrying 
 party last night up a road full of Minenwerfer 
 holes and got in, changing camp, at 4 a.m. As 
 a result I have just got up for lunch instead of 
 breakfast and the post goes at 2. 
 
 Here we are, back in the farm where the women 
 herd the cows among the shells. I'm with Brown 
 in one of those bivouac covers, very nice in nice 
 weather, but somewhat damply in Flanders. 
 
 July 16. 
 
 Another working party to-night probably till 
 5 a.m. so that I don't suppose I shall wake up 
 in time to write you much of a letter to-morrow, 
 as I intended to do, not expecting the party to-night. 
 I do not like being up so late, especially along a 
 bullety road, but sich is life. Haig is reported to 
 have complimented the Division on the way it 
 has worked and been bombarded up here, while 
 the strafe goes on down south. Nice of Vaughan 
 to write. I am glad he was left out of it. His 
 Batt. must have had a specially bad time, having 
 to retreat always the worst part. 
 
 140 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 We are in the same hut as a fortnight ago, C 
 and D officers together, the same gramophone 
 tunes going (but one officer less the one who was 
 killed); everybody the same, except that war 
 seems more in the air, and they talk of how to 
 spike guns and such things. I think there is going 
 to be little rest now for any one till the war has 
 taken a different turn for the Boches. It's a 
 strange atmosphere, artificial in a way the zest 
 to kill and all that, but necessary, I suppose. I 
 wish I could get up more of it. 
 
 One of D Coy. Sgts. has been recommended for 
 a V.C. Sgt. Smith he was twice wounded in 
 the second line on the night of the raid, and went 
 twice through a barrage to fetch stretcher-bearers 
 quite good work. 
 
 July 17. Got home at 3 a.m. after all. Two 
 separate bullets between Sgt. E. and self, who 
 were walking side by side ! We both looked at 
 t'other to see who was hit. However, no harm 
 to anybody at all and slep till 12. To-night there 
 should be a boost on and I am hoping to watch 
 it from a high hill. Will tell you if I do. 
 
 Sgt. M., the one I took down the other day, 
 has written to Sgt. E. to say he's going on very 
 well on the whole, and asking him to thank me 
 for my attentions. Nice of him, as he must still 
 be very bad, I should think. 
 
 July 18. Thought I would keep this a second 
 day and tell you about the strafe as seen from the 
 
 141 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 hill. As a matter of fact I was rather disappointed. 
 It was a fine night (after the hottest day we've 
 had) with the moon drifting behind tiny clouds, 
 and a dozen of us sat in the open watching shells 
 burst ours a couple of miles away and some of 
 theirs just behind us. Tremendous noise, of course. 
 We set fire to two houses behind the German lines 
 within the first five minutes and they did not 
 retaliate effectively. The red flashes of the bursts 
 and the crashing sounds were rather terrible, but 
 did not compare with the same when you are 
 marching beneath them, I thought. 
 
 To-day is bitly cold. The news still seems good. 
 Just post time. No letter from you, perhaps two 
 to-morrow. 
 
 July 19. 
 
 Just a line to say I'm very fit. Three letters 
 arrived for me from you to-day. Please thank 
 my mother for her parcel when you write all 
 the things were good. 
 
 It's a nice day again after a dull one. Much 
 shooting in the night. 
 
 July 21. 
 
 It is a very nice day, and so was yesterday, 
 though on neither, so far, have I got a letter from 
 you. However, I expect some to-day. I expect 
 
 142 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 with all this fighting going on there simply isn't 
 room to carry mails in trains and steamers. , We 
 are sitting once more as in the photograph what 
 next I don't know, and as there is supposed to be 
 an extra strict censorship, couldn't tell you if I 
 did. 
 
 At present C Coy. is rather annoyed. You 
 heard about the Paris review of troops the other 
 day. Well, the 3rd R.B.s represented our Division 
 at it, and our best N.C.O.s represented the 3rd 
 R.B.s and went off expecting a tremendous good 
 time. Instead of which they were barely let out 
 of barracks the whole time they were there with 
 the result that they took French leave one night 
 and went to a box at the theatre and were all put 
 on a charge when they got back. Some reprimanded 
 and several reverted to the ranks exactly when 
 their value might be inestimable. Discipline ! 
 Here were these men just come out of a raid and 
 with two years' fighting behind them, kept as if 
 they were prisoners. The consequence of it all 
 is that we are short of N.C.O.s and have to appoint 
 young or inadequate ones to take the place of 
 these tried ones. It isn't good enough. Oh for 
 a little elasticity in the Army. 
 
 I do hope you are getting this nice weather. I 
 think it will make the waiting a little less depressing. 
 
 143 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 July 23. 
 
 Here's the post going off at a moment's notice. 
 It's fine weather and I have a new servant, my 
 last one having got his discharge. The new one 
 is a Manchester guttersnipe called ' Ginger ' 
 you would love him. Looks about 15 and has 
 been out about fifteen months unutterably cheeky. 
 He offered himself for the job. I'll try and write 
 a proper letter to-morrow. 
 
 July 23. 
 
 I sent you a small scrap to-day because the 
 post corporal, who is a silly little very mournful 
 wisp of a man (who also cuts hair and sniffles over 
 you as he does it), chose to send word at 11.15 
 a.m. that all letters had to be sent off at n a.m. 
 And I was only down late after the third most 
 maddening night of mosquito biting. 
 
 Before I forget, I have sent back Frdk.'s rifle 
 in the case together with my MS. book. We never 
 know now where we shall be next, so the less kit 
 we have the better. 
 
 We are in a rather nice farm with a nice old 
 farmer who congratulated me on the beauty of 
 my French accent, which was rather tactful of 
 him, as the accent is the only possible merit 
 of my French. 
 
 144 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 seems to have lost heavily. I am afraid 
 
 these newer Batts. lose more heavily even than 
 they need, for experience at this game is the only 
 thing that counts for much, it seems to me. 
 
 By the way, until this strafe is over, I don't 
 fancy any one hit would be kept here over twenty- 
 four hours. Everybody seems to go back like 
 lightning. It's strange how warlike the air is 
 every night the noise of heavy bombardment: 
 the roads crowded with troops, rumours flying 
 in every direction. And all this land in the mean- 
 time is ripening to the harvest corn getting 
 yellow, the hops climbing sky-high, the hay in 
 cocks, and broad beans six feet high. To-day 
 was a beautiful day a hot sun and a fresh breeze. 
 Brown and I walked into - to buy things for 
 the mess basket : we purchased from a charming 
 French maiden, and sent our goods back five 
 miles by two orderlies, one my new servant, 
 Ginger. 
 
 July 28. (Really 26. C.H.V.) 
 
 It may be the 28th or not, but I'm writing in 
 bed just before snoring off and I'm rather vague 
 about it. 
 
 It's still rather nice weather in quite a different 
 part from the last : in fact, we seem to be on the 
 move, and I suppose some day shall get to the 
 centre of things : but for the next six days I am 
 
 145 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 on a bayonet course (!) in order to qualify as a 
 Batt. instructor. This rather amusing, with the 
 greatest battle of the world going on, but like us. 
 C Coy. had to send an officer and only Brown and 
 I were available, and Brown wasn't keen, so I 
 offered myself, tho' I'm afraid some physical drill 
 is included, which I detest. Five hours' bayonet 
 fighting a day for a week ought to make me rather 
 fit, and, as you know, I rather fancy myself with 
 it, but shall probably want to correct the instructor 
 most of the time. Last night we spent in a train 
 till 2.30 a.m., when we started to march twenty 
 miles stopped for breakfast at 5 a.m., after which 
 Brown and I, alone of the Batt., bathed in a rather 
 nice river just below us. It ran about five miles 
 an hour and one could only just prevent oneself 
 from being carried down. Cold but rather nice 
 in the middle of a long march. Got to our destina- 
 tion about 12 noon, and I am in bed on the floor 
 of a very small farm in a kind of Collier 's-End 
 village the farm kept by a very ancient and 
 smiling Frenchwoman, who is horrified because 
 B. and C. insist on sleeping in the garden. My 
 French is getting terribly bad and fluent, and I 
 bargain for hens and cream and make jokes in 
 French. I had about twenty minutes' chat with 
 a charming, dirty, small girl of about eight, who 
 wanted to sell me gateaux, but was quite happy to 
 talk instead. She told me exactly where we were 
 going which was more than we knew ourselves. 
 
 146 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 As usual, not being able to describe things 
 exactly puts me off, but it can't be helped. 
 
 It's rather amusing how the modern Malbrouck 
 (like A. D.) s'en va-t-en guerre with John Bull, 
 London Opinion, a pound of chocolates, a bag of 
 greengages, and the utmost light-heartedness, on 
 the seat of his compartment beside him. 
 
 Did I tell you that has been made Adjutant? 
 
 And there are people like and - , men of 
 
 30 and 35, with every intellectual distinction and 
 the habit of command and organisation in the 
 Batt., and yet baby boys who have spent four 
 months at Sandhurst have to be tried first at 
 what is not the simplest job in the world. How- 
 ever, I'm not girding at things though I do 
 think it will take longer to win while we go on in 
 that way. 
 
 Must sleep now. 
 
 27 (?) Thursday (?) 
 
 I believe there are extra stringent regulations 
 about what is put in letters at present, so I feel 
 rather as though one is not at liberty even to say 
 it's a fine day, which it is. I ought to be getting 
 rather fit with eight hours' bayoneting a day, 
 and I think I am; but am also rather annoyed 
 with the instructor a Sgt. -Major of some other 
 
 147 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 regiment who is rather impertinent. I don't 
 know how I shall get on with him as the days 
 roll by, tho' it's absurd quarrelling with anybody 
 but Boches at present, and I shall endeavour 
 not to. 
 
 A funny little rosy-faced midget of a Frenchman 
 rolled in to-day to say that some of our men had 
 stolen his espalier apples, and I had a long con- 
 versation with him in a sort of French, and the 
 padre gave him some almond toffee, and he went 
 off after shaking us by the hand warmly with the 
 statement that he should consider the apples as a 
 ' souvenir ' for the troops. Poor little man, they 
 were apples that would weigh a lime each and last 
 till March. 
 
 Some of the French people can be very annoying. 
 I discovered a very good vin ordinaire at an 
 estaminet in sealed bottles; and some very bad 
 in unsealed bottles. I bought the sealed bottles 
 and returned them empty at their request. Next 
 time the servant was given the sealed bottles I 
 had returned filled with the inferior wine. 
 
 We have rather an amusing staff at present : 
 
 's servant is a musical comedy star of sorts 
 
 and quite amusing. He came to me last night 
 and told me that Ginger my little guttersnipe 
 had had toothache for three days and nights and 
 wouldn't say anything about it, and would I see 
 to it. So I sent Ginger to the doctor, who pulled 
 out his largest tooth before breakfast and then 
 
 148 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 gave him M. and D. which means carry on with 
 your usual work which meant a long day's march 
 in the sun. Some of the Army doctors are awfully 
 inconsiderate, I think. The poor little wretch 
 hadn't slept for three nights apparently, and 
 anybody could see that he looked ill as a result 
 of it. Luckily, Buxton let him off for the day; 
 but he gets told he's too sentimental. 
 
 I must to bed I had breakfast at 8 a.m. and 
 it's 11.30 now very late ! 
 
 Frdk. is absurd about the paid job. He ought 
 to know as well as anybody that in war more than 
 in most things people can't be paid according to 
 their works, and it's therefore excellent if somebody 
 who really has got the capacity gets some sort of 
 reward for it. However, nothing will persuade him, 
 I suppose. 
 
 Saturday, July 29. 
 
 I am afraid my last letter will be rather late, 
 as this is the third time in a fortnight that the rat 
 of a post corporal has told us one time for collecting 
 letters and then taken them at another. And now 
 I have nothing to tell you. It is still very beautiful 
 weather and we are still here, and I am still bayonet- 
 fighting. Haven't quarrelled any further with 
 the Sgt. -Major, who is more respectful in his manners, 
 and am getting very fit. I breakfast at 8, bayonet- 
 
 149 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 fight from 9 12 and 2-4, and then feel considerably 
 sleepy, apart from having letters to censor, which 
 takes a long time and is rather dull. 
 
 The back gardens of these cottages are about 
 half an acre large and well-stocked, but very weedy. 
 Of course they sell us vegetables at high prices. 
 
 Brown and I are just setting off to a village 
 three kilometres away, as we have the afternoon 
 off, and this will have to close as Brown wants to 
 start early to catch the cashier and get money 
 out of him. 
 
 Will try and send something better to-morrow. 
 
 July 30. 
 
 It's Sunday and a most beautiful day very 
 hot sun and very nice air, and I am sitting in the 
 garden all by my lone, as the Batt. has gone off 
 on a Field Day, and I, being supposedly on a 
 special course, am taking advantage of the fact 
 that there is no bayonet-fighting to-day to do 
 nothing at all. So that I really have got time to 
 write. 
 
 The country round is rather nice the village 
 in a steep valley with a stream half the width of 
 the Rib through it, marshland on one side and 
 parkland on the other, rising steadily to a kind of 
 downs which, not being too well cultivated at 
 present, are full of wild flowers. Several of these 
 
 150 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 I haven't seen before especially one or two 
 campanulas new to me, but I dare say not rare. 
 
 The men have a bathing pool or two in the 
 stream and like it much. The British Tommy is 
 like the pig just as clean as he is allowed to be. 
 
 A. D., who is a lively youth, spends his time 
 scrapping with me in the mess, who spend my 
 time trying to persuade him that if he hadn't 
 been to Eton and Sandhurst some glimmer of sense 
 might remain with him. He's really not unpleasing 
 at all. 
 
 Just had to move into the shade of an apple 
 tree out of the sun, so you see how warm it is. 
 
 The Paris episode has died down now. They 
 simply could not afford to lose the sergeants. 
 Of course you have to bear in mind that the older 
 soldiers take these things philosophically as being 
 the Army all over. The trouble is that there are 
 not going to be old soldiers for very much longer 
 only old officers, and the new wine will be forced 
 into the old bottles by the old Sandhurst system 
 because that system has been artificially preserved 
 by rapid promotion, which prevents it from suffer- 
 ing the normal casualties. 
 
 Do you see the lad Anderson has got the Military 
 Cross for a raid he did? I thought he would show 
 himself pretty competent and gallant. 
 
 I am almost as hot as if I were in India ! The 
 old lady next door has just told me it was too hot, 
 but I said ' No.' 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Very distant but continual noise of guns. 
 
 It is quite extraordinary to see the sort of military 
 articles and sketches that go down in some of the 
 
 papers. I saw one on soldier servants in the 
 
 by some one who stated that his servant even built 
 a dug-out for him when he went into the trenches. 
 A decent dug-out takes about ten men to build, 
 working several hours several days; and the idea 
 merely indicates that the writer has never been 
 out of England. The same with half these reported 
 conversations with the men back from the Push : 
 they don't even suggest the sort of attitude the 
 men take towards the whole thing. And the un- 
 doubted gallantry is far too much insisted on in 
 order to cover up the shortage of organisation 
 and forethought that so often goes with it. I don't 
 want to seem critical, but one does want to let it 
 out sometimes, and I know you won't mind 
 listening. 
 
 These courses such as Howard has embarked 
 on are rather quaint. Of course, it's the same with 
 me at present. I ought to be handling my platoon 
 instead of learning the bayonet; and the other 
 officer learning it is a Regular who has had about 
 fifteen years of it before, I suppose, but the in- 
 structor must have a class, so off you go to it, 
 whether you are expert or not. 
 
 Naturally, there are some new tips. I don't 
 happen to agree with most of them; and it will 
 be rather like having to instruct the men to cut 
 
 152 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 their balls at tennis instead of driving them a 
 painful duty. 
 
 August i. 
 
 I wrote you two lines this morning and just 
 missed the little post-corporal, who announced 
 that he was taking the letters about five minutes 
 before he took them, and then scuttled off down 
 a track through thistles 10 feet high, like the white 
 rabbit. I sent my servant in pursuit, but he failed 
 to catch him; hence this letter, which may be a 
 little longer but not much. I'm writing it in my 
 valise in a tent on the top of a bare hill by the 
 light of a very flickering candle. Eric 1 not far off 
 I dare say. It's really hot weather now : men 
 fainting by the way from heat, so you may imagine 
 I'm rather well suited by it. We're not in any- 
 thing so far. It's very difficult to write by this 
 bougie. Guns in the distance. I must say good- 
 night now, I think, and see if I can add a line in 
 the morning when I believe we go early to bathe 
 like the Spartans. 
 
 2. No time. Just going to bathe. 
 
 August 2. 
 
 Just a line to say still no news. Not a bad bathe 
 this morning in the river, somewhat coloured by 
 the rest of the Battalion. I am on a Court-martial 
 
 1 Capt. T. E. Le Blanc Smith, M.C., R.F.A. 
 153 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 to-morrow. It's a picturesque place this many 
 troops in view bands, concerts, football going on, 
 and in the distance the crack of the guns. I must 
 stop now. 
 
 August 3. 
 
 Still another beautiful day and still nothing 
 doing. I spent four hours court-martialling 
 no deserters, I'm glad to say; but I did not enjoy 
 it for the same reasons as Frdk. used not to at 
 Sheppey. Tell him he might do a very useful 
 work revising the Army Code and the general 
 powers committed to the casual judge. There 
 are some sentences that may be necessary, as a 
 matter of course, and the question of guilty or not 
 guilty seems seldom difficult, but when the punish- 
 ment varies between a month and three years in 
 prison, and the decision is left to amateurs of 
 justice, somebody is sure to suffer. 
 
 Sgt. has not been well and I find he was 
 
 laid up last year with some chest trouble (caught 
 from old French lady where he was billeted) and 
 warned by the doctor to ' look after himself ' in 
 case consumption followed. As if a man could 
 look after himself out here. It seems strange in 
 so splendidly-built a man, and one oi the added 
 horrors of war. 
 
 A captain in a Scottish regiment is coming to 
 dinner. It's just about to come on the table, 
 
 154 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 made of old ammunition boxes, in the open, on 
 the side of a down. Beautifully warm band 
 playing five-course dinner sunset in crimson 
 dust, and always the infernal crash of the guns. 
 
 August 4. 
 
 I have no news to give you. Nothing doing. 
 Practised an attack before breakfast; spent the 
 morning teaching the Coy. the latest style of 
 bayonet-fighting; had a ride this afternoon among 
 barbed wire and trenches with Brown, who was 
 thrown by the Coy. horse; tea; lecture by the 
 G.O.C.; dinner; went out with Buxton to watch 
 a great strafe that is going on; came back; corrected 
 platoon letters, and am now writing to you. 
 
 My mother's parcel has arrived very welcome 
 also the gauze netting; just at the moment the 
 mosquitoes are off, frightened by the guns, perhaps ! 
 But it will be very useful if they return. The 
 noise is very distracting. 
 
 Must sleep now. The baynit course isn't keeping 
 me back at all. It's sort of extra. 
 
 Sunday, August 6. 
 
 At the moment of writing I am a-setting in my 
 valise once more, and two padres are sitting on 
 the next valise having supper at 10.30 p.m. after 
 M 155 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 a round of services. The Buxton Brer and the 
 Methody parson, a Cambridge man. It has been 
 a nice day, very hot sun but cold wind : everybody 
 is peeling under it, and one's knees in shorts are 
 quite painfully burnt. I started the day by bathing 
 with the Coy. at 7.30 a.m. somewhat cool; a 
 Brigade church parade at 10; after lunch, sleep; 
 after tea a long walk with Brown and the doctor; 
 then dinner and correcting platoon letters; then 
 writing to you, then more sleep. 
 
 I am sorry to say the doctor has sent Sgt. 
 
 down, strongly suspected of consumption. It's 
 awful to think of in so fine a fellow. I saw him 
 just before he went. He has promised to let me 
 know how he goes. He thinks he'll be back in a 
 couple of days, but the doctor says not for this 
 war. I would rather have lost half the platoon, 
 but it can't be helped. 
 
 Still nothing doing. I teach the baynit and we 
 practise digging and such things. I got a letter 
 from Frdk. Nice of him to write. Please thank 
 him. There isn't a lot of opportunity for letters, 
 though I expect he would make them if he were 
 in my place. I wish I could tell you any news of 
 interest, but I canna. 
 
 August 7. 
 
 No letters for two days but I know that is not 
 your fault. 
 
 156 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 It's still the hot windy weather that takes all 
 the skin off you by day and is rather icy at night. 
 I taught the baynit this morning and threw some 
 Boche bombs this afternoon, and then had a swim 
 in the river. I really think I should not be bad 
 with the baynit (which we call the sword) if only 
 I had not a slight rheumatic in the left shoulder 
 which will not quite go away. Advancing years? 
 or sitting in the mud and snow at Hooge? 
 
 This is rather a picturesque spot : I wish I 
 could tell you about it, but I may not. It's rather 
 stupid. 
 
 I must say Good-night now. 
 
 August 9. 
 
 No time to write to you to-day, but am very 
 fit. I got three letters from you yesterday. Will 
 try to write more to-morrow. 
 
 Thursday, August 10. 
 
 You would be amused by the place in which I 
 write this a small scoop in the side of a trench, 
 like a rabbit burrow, to which I've retired after a 
 somewhat disturbed night in the bottom of a 
 trench disturbed only by rain at 4 a.m. after 
 which I wandered about till breakfast time, getting 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 damp and fearing greatly that the fine weather 
 has gone for good. The night before I was in yet 
 another place resembling a hare's form more 
 than anything else. I made it myself out of an 
 old shell-hole with a hurdle on the top, covered 
 with wild mustard and old sandbags to keep out 
 the dew. Bitly cold it was, too, as nowadays I 
 carry all my goods on my back in my haversack 
 plus the Aquascutum strapped to it. Not even 
 a pack. I think I am about as Red Injun in colour 
 as I ever have been, including the knees. 
 
 No. 12 platoon is not in luck at the moment. 
 
 I told you about Sgt. : next day a corporal 
 
 recently appointed was taken ill and sent down ; 
 and yesterday, while I was instructing the platoon 
 in the bayonet, a fat shell pitched about 30 yards 
 away, and knocked out Sgt. D., breaking his leg 
 below the knee. It was luck having only one man 
 hit a little nearer and the whole platoon might 
 have been; but, of course, he is a great loss the 
 only really good N.C.O. I had left. The doctor 
 thinks he won't lose it. He shed his gore all over 
 my only pair of bags as I was helping to carry him 
 in, and there's no water to wash them in. Sich 
 is life at the moment. 
 
 Later in the day I had an endless walk with C. 
 through a trench three hours we took eating 
 dust all the way, through awful smells and every 
 form of abandonment, from rifles and tin hats to 
 dead men. Oh dear, I don't like war. 
 
 158 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 The flies are disgusting and the mosquito netting 
 is very useful. 
 
 I'm afraid I envied Sgt. D. 
 
 No more at present, and don't picture that we're 
 having a bad time we're not so far it's only 
 rather disgusting. 
 
 I think it must be Friday, the nth of August, 
 and I am lying in my scoop again at 3.30 p.m., 
 whence I move very shortly. My schedule for 
 this afternoon was lunch at i; write to you 1.45- 
 2.15; bath at 2.15; sleep 2.30-4; tea at 4, start 
 at not much later. As usual, things cropped up 
 and have done me in. The postman arrived and 
 departed about 1.45 ! Buxton has gone up; Brown 
 has gone sick; and messengers have been arriving 
 with messages, effectually preventing me from 
 sleeping at all, and it's now nearly tea-time. On 
 the other hand, it's a fine day again : I have had 
 a magnificent hot bath in half a small tin of water; 
 and your letter has arrived. Also" one from Frdk. , 
 enclosing Vaughan's. I'm afraid we've missed 
 for sure this time : having just reversed our 
 locations, and I've been seeing the things he has 
 and vice versa. I had a most tussome working 
 party last night : was given a guide and a map 
 reference; didn't trust the guide going up, and 
 took my own way to the map reference. On arriving 
 found that though I'd got to the right place, sure 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 enough, the reference had been given me wrong ! 
 Meant another two hours' work for everybody. 
 Got into a shelling and had three men hit (all very 
 slight, I'm glad to say) and one with a sprained 
 ankle, from dodging shells. Allowed the guide 
 to guide me back, with the inevitable result that 
 he lost himself and us; then struck across country 
 and very luckily exactly hit our trench. But not 
 enough sleep quite. Still, it's a beautiful day. 
 
 I'm glad you like t'other poems. 
 
 August 12. Must send this off no time to write 
 more. We are working despritly hard very little 
 sleep. I'm afraid letters are likely to be very 
 irregular at present. Don't be worried by that. 
 
 August 14. 
 
 I dare say Eric is quite near, but one simply 
 hasn't time to find out, and we might be only 100 
 yds. away without knowing it. We are having 
 a fairly peaceful two days after two fairly hot ones. 
 I got about three hours' sleep in forty-eight 
 constant shelling fearful smells and working like 
 navvies. Did about double the ordinary infantry- 
 man allowance myself. The flies are disgusting 
 now. I think the platoon is getting rather friendly 
 at last had about half a dozen of them chatting 
 to me during the shells, when they most want a 
 little consolation. My Buff friend, Shafto, was 
 
 160 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 killed, I think the night after I had the carrying 
 party, in much the same place. Quite the best 
 man in the Batt., I should say. We got off very 
 lightly. 
 
 I can't distinguish sunburn from dirt on my 
 face now. If I rub too hard the skin comes off; 
 and if I don't, the dirt remains on ! Vaughan's 
 letter very amusing. I hope Frdk. is really better. 
 Brown is back again, fairly fit, I think. 
 
 I am in my rabbit scoop again. My last bed 
 was a ledge of chalk about i ft. wide and 4 long, 
 at an angle sideways not very comfortable ! 
 Oh dear, there comes the Q.M.S. for the letters. 
 I must finish. 
 
 August 1 6. 
 
 No letters for two, three days, so a little flatness. 
 But I hope soon I shall get three or four to make 
 up. The weather has turned misty moisty, which 
 is rather a nuisance when one sleeps without any 
 bed-clothes. I tie things like a sock or a towel 
 round my knees and get my legs into a damp sand- 
 bag to keep warm; and really was quite warm 
 last-night. 
 
 Quite a slack day yesterday and might have 
 for some days. You remember Vaughan's position 
 in the Push? Probably mine would be the same 
 if there were one at any time. 
 
 161 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Did I tell you of a rather nice boy in my platoon 
 who writes a family letter daily always beginning 
 
 ' Dear Mum and Dad, and dear loving sisters 
 Rosie, Letty, and our Gladys, I am very pleased 
 to write you another welcome letter as this leaves 
 me. Dear Mum and Dad and loving sisters, I 
 hope you keeps the home fires burning. Not arf. 
 The boys are in the pink. Not arf. Dear loving 
 sisters Rosie, Letty, and our Gladys, keep merry 
 and bright. Not arf.' 1 
 
 It goes on like that for three pages absolutely 
 fixed; and if he has to say anything definite, like 
 acknowledging a parcel, he has to put in a separate 
 letter not to interfere with the sacred order of 
 things. He is quite young and very nice, quiet, 
 never grouses or gives any trouble one of those 
 very gentle creatures that the War has caught 
 up and tried to turn into a frightful soldier, I 
 should think in vain. I can't imagine him sticking 
 anybody, but I'm sure he would do anything he 
 
 felt to be his duty. 's servant is also another 
 
 of the gallant lambs. He is a squat little elderly 
 man of about 45 was a comedian of sorts, and 
 looks it has a wife and five children was rejected 
 six times by the doctors and got in as a bandsman; 
 then shoved out here into the front line. He sings 
 comic songs and cheers the others and waddles 
 about manfully, but is no more a fighting ruffian 
 
 1 The names in this letter have been changed my husband had a 
 great regard for the writer. He expresses it here and did later in 
 conversation with me. C. H. V. 
 
 162 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 than a child of six. Yet he too takes part in the 
 bloodiest battles of the world. 
 
 A. B. really is a pleasing and exasperating person. 
 He'll wander in at 11.30 a.m. and ask if lunch is 
 ready. I say ' No, it's only 11.30. Would you 
 like it earlier than usual? ' He says ' Yes, I 
 should rather I'm rather hungry/ So I get the 
 cook to promise it at 12.30 instead of i, and at 
 about 12.25 B. will stray forth and return about 
 2.15, and be quite hurt because the lunch is rather 
 cold ! But I enjoy it. 
 
 August 17. 
 
 I did get four letters to-day. 
 
 I got into a nasty bombardment last night with 
 a party I had volunteered for 80 men and only 
 one hit, which was very lucky, as we had to sprint 
 across the open under shrapnel, besides two hours 
 heavy stuff. All quite unnecessary and somebody's 
 fault, but I don't know quite whose and probably 
 never shall. These things will happen at times. 
 The Regimental Sgt. -Major was with me : a terrific 
 person with a wonderful waxed moustache, and 
 it was very funny to see him peering out of various 
 holes in the ground like a coney. He told me he 
 cracked several jokes with some of the young 
 fellows to keep their spirits up; but I can't say 
 that I heard him, and as Brown remarked, that 
 
 163 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 would have been much more awful to them than 
 the actual bombardment. His idea of a joke would 
 be to say ' Here ! You I Put yer cap on 
 straight ! ' 
 
 August 1 8. 
 
 I forgot to answer your question about the 
 small dog in the photograph. It doesn't belong 
 was only a farm creature of one of the mixed 
 French types, introduced as a mascot. The 
 troops like a mascot in fact, I believe that is why 
 the very young officer is better than the older 
 ones. They like some young frolicsome creature 
 
 like barking at their heels and playing about 
 
 in their midst. There are two or three lurcher 
 creatures kept at the Transport, but they don't go 
 into the front line much. One big puppy doesn't 
 seem to mind shells a bit. 
 
 I am afraid I am in for a Lewis gun course. I 
 suppose other people would like it, so, pig-headedly, 
 I don't. The thing is a machine, and, anyway, 
 like Howard, I don't like leaving the platoon in 
 these strenuous times. The course is, I believe, 
 a week, far from the firing line. At present I am 
 at the Transport on my way, as it were : might 
 be recalled, but don't think it's likely. I asked 
 to be left with the platoon and can't do more. 
 
 I don't see any Paris or other leave in prospect 
 164 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 for a long time, confound the Bodies. I wish I 
 did. I do wish they hadn't done away with leave. 
 The thing seems never-ending without a prospect 
 of it. 
 
 Give my love to all and a pat to Meriel and the 
 Bui Hound. 1 
 
 August 23. 
 
 I am very fit and well, but I'm afraid you've 
 been left without a letter for five days and I only 
 hope you haven't been worried by it. I might 
 have sent you a Field post card, but the fact is 
 that I thought that might make you worry rather 
 more, and I hoped that, as my last letter told you 
 I was going on a course, you would at all events 
 think I was in some safe spot instead of the very 
 unsafe one where I was. 
 
 Directly after I finished that letter to you I was 
 wired for to reinforce the Batt. in an attack. 
 When I wrote to you that I should be in Vaughan's 
 position if anything happened, I knew something 
 was going to happen shortly. I had proposed to 
 Buxton that I should go up with the platoon 
 instead of V., and that had been arranged; but 
 at the last moment the C.O. insisted that V. should 
 go, as an old and regular soldier. C. was necessary 
 as Lewis gun officer, and the choice lay between 
 
 1 The bull mastiff appearing in the frontispiece. 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Brown and me. Brown was taken because owing 
 to the bayonet course I had missed some attack 
 practices he had had. V. and Brown are both 
 dead now, shot through the heart. You will see 
 the account of the Push in Times of 2ist, I 
 went to the Transport with four others when the 
 Batt. went up, stayed a night there, and wrote to 
 you on the i8th. The attack came off at 2.30 p.m., 
 and at 3.30 the five of us were sent for to Brigade 
 H.Q. No time to pack anything, a blazing hot 
 day, and I had to borrow the Quartermaster's 
 revolver as I'd lent mine to V. An hour-and-a- 
 half's walk to Brigade H.Q., where we heard that 
 things were going very well, but more officers 
 were needed. I sent Ginger back from there, as 
 he seemed too small to stick Boches. 
 
 From there we had a three hour walk to the front 
 line. Shells most of the way, and the wounded 
 streaming down an open road between the downs. 
 We passed A. D., hit through the leg, but filled with 
 delight because he was going back to Blighty alive 
 
 and kicking : then , rather badly hit in the 
 
 shoulder heaps of bandaged men, including two 
 of my platoon. The men of all regiments, and 
 wounded in every variety of way. To read in the 
 papers you might suppose the wounded were 
 whisked from the battlefield in a motor ambulance. 
 I get rather tired of all that false and breezy 
 representation of a battle. 
 
 I've never been so hot in my life as when we 
 166 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 came to Batt. H.Q., just behind our jumping-off 
 trench. There we heard of Brown and V. and 
 many others, and from there we went on to join 
 our Coys, in the various bits of Boche trench they 
 had taken. No guide, a hail of shells and a sort 
 of blind stumble through shell-holes to where 
 we fancied the new line was. I found C Coy. at 
 last. H.Q. in a 30 ft. deep Boche dug-out, choked 
 with dead Germans and bluebottles, and there 
 we had our meals till we started back at 4 a.m. 
 this morning (five days). In between that time I 
 certainly spent some of the most unpleasant hours 
 of my life. It seems that the Batt. had done 
 extraordinarily well and gained the first of two 
 objectives. The second was to be won that night, 
 and next day we were to be relieved. Unfortunately 
 a Batt. on our right had been held up and we had 
 to wait for them in a trench choked with our dead 
 and Boche wounded and dying for two days and 
 then do another attack. The men had been in 
 high spirits over the first part, but naturally the 
 reaction was great when they found that instead 
 of being relieved they were to dig in, and I 
 had never seen them so glum. Here again the 
 breezy reporter is revolting. The Push itself is 
 done in hot blood : but the rest is horrible, 
 digging in when you are tired to death, short 
 rations, no water to speak of, hardly any sleep, 
 and men being killed by shell-fire most of the 
 time. 
 
 167 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 I was given the C line in front of H.Q. to hold 
 with two-and-a-half platoons, and luckily the 
 Boches never really found it, and I had fewer 
 casualties than anybody. I slept in the bottom 
 of the trench, sometimes in rain (in shorts), without 
 any cover and really never felt very cold. Also, 
 though I don't suppose I got more than an hour 
 at a time, I never felt done for want of sleep. C. 
 and Buxton were the only officers left. 
 
 The second attack was made yesterday, and only 
 our D Coy. was sent off at the start. C. was to 
 support it if it needed reinforcement. My dear, you 
 never saw anything more dramatically murderous 
 than the modern attack a sheet of fire from both 
 sides in which it seems impossible for any one to 
 live. I saw it from my observer's post about 100 
 yds. away. My observer was shot through the 
 head in the first minute. The O.C. of D Coy. had 
 been badly wounded, and Butler led them on 
 most gallantly. The last I saw of him was after 
 a huge shell had burst just over him (laying out 
 several men) waving on the rest. None of the 
 D officers came back, and very few of the 
 men. 
 
 Again the right Batt. failed, and this time the 
 R.B. was inevitably involved in it, as far as D 
 Coy. went. We gained a certain amount of 
 France back by digging a trench in front of 
 my bit of line about 100 yds. from the Boches 
 in the dark, lit by terrific flares from the 
 
 168 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 German lines. After that we hunted for our 
 wounded till 4 a.m. I found S. S. about 50 yds. 
 from the Boche trench, shot through the heart. 
 R. got back wounded in several places. Butler 
 was last heard of in a shell-hole about 10 yds. 
 from the Boches. He was an awfully gallant 
 fellow. The whole thing was almost too bloody 
 for words, and this, mind you, was victory of a 
 sort for us. We fancy the Boches lost far more 
 heavily, as our guns got on them when they were 
 reinforcing. 
 
 I'm too sleepy to tell you any more. The Batt. 
 did magnificently : captured many prisoners and 
 advanced several hundred yards ; but the cost is 
 very great. 
 
 Now we are out of it for days at any rate. 
 
 August 24. 
 
 I was so sleepy last night when I finished my 
 letter that I don't know what I told you and 
 what I didn't, and I'm sleepier than ever now. 
 I'll try and write a decent letter to-morrow. 
 I got two of your letters in the middle of the 
 strafe. 
 
 169 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 August 25. 
 
 I hadn't time after all to-day to write. We 
 have been moving behind the lines, where we shall 
 be for over a week, I fancy. 
 
 Your cake arrived, and one Lieut, remarked it 
 was the best he had tasted since he had come out, 
 and several others said the same. 
 
 August 26. 
 
 It's one thing to promise a letter and another 
 to get it done, for when the fighting is done, 
 it's not, as the newspapers make out, a rest 
 cure, but fuss and fury and discomfort and hard 
 work. 
 
 I don't think I told you the most miraculous 
 part of the affray the other day. One of the D 
 Coy. wounded, dragging himself back to the line 
 I held, heard a shell coming and dropped into 
 what he thought was the nearest shell-hole, but 
 was, in fact, a well 60 ft. deep. Nobody saw him, 
 but a sentry heard him call after a time. The 
 problem then was how to get him out, for the 
 beastly thing had shelving sides made of boulders 
 and old mortar quite loose, so that if you went 
 near it started rolling down and threatened to 
 bury him. We got him up six hours later at about 
 
 170 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 3.30 a.m. by means of a pick tied to a wire rope, 
 to which he fastened himself. I was desperately 
 afraid he would fall off half-way up or wouldn't 
 have the strength to tie himself on, but he did. 
 One would have had to go down in that case, but 
 I think he would have been buried from above 
 in the process. At least three men were ready 
 to go after him, though it wouldn't have been a 
 pleasant job for them either. The amazing thing 
 was that he came up without a bone broken 
 from a dry well 60 ft. deep. 
 
 It's rather melancholy this after the battle 
 
 business. 's brother came over to-day to 
 
 hear about him, also . You'll see a host of 
 
 names. 
 
 I see the Times of 24th says it's the most suc- 
 cessful day since the Push started, and apparently 
 the R.B.s are considered to have done awfully 
 well. J spoke a lot of German that night to wounded 
 prisoners. 
 
 August 27, 
 
 I'm still without leisure. Buxton has gone sick 
 for two days at least. 
 
 The troops after their push are bivouacked in 
 an open field with no cover but their waterproof 
 sheets constant showers not very comfortable 
 for men who have hardly slept and never ceased 
 
 N 171 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 working under shell-fire for a week. Some old 
 noodle's fault, I suppose. 
 
 My dear, some of the men are too quaint. One 
 lad, whose brother was killed the last night in 
 the Boche trench, came to me to ask how to write 
 to his sister-in-law about it. He had got as far 
 as ' My dear Lil, I now have great pleasure 
 
 in telling you that Tom ' and there he had 
 
 stuck. I had to draft a more sympathetic letter 
 for him. The same on being asked if he would 
 like to help bury his brother said, ' I will, if you 
 like, sergeant.' Yet he was quite upset. 
 
 The G.O.C. congratulated the Brigade to-day 
 in the rain; it somehow seemed unnecessary. 
 
 Funny that E., D., D., and I, who came out 
 together, should be all left with only about five 
 others. 
 
 August 28. 
 
 It's a fine evening and I sit in a tent with a towel 
 over my knees to prevent the flies, which are appal- 
 ling, from tickling them, and am for the moment 
 at leisure, so I must freakly try to write to you. 
 
 It's one of the errors of the Army that Q.M.S., 
 which is a non-combatant job, is part of the up- 
 ward gradation, so that you may lose a good 
 fighting man at a critical moment because he's 
 been made Q.M.S., or you may have an intelligent 
 clerk step out of it to be Sgt. -Major. 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 They have got up tents for the men and there's 
 a concert now going on just outside mine. They 
 do pick up their spirits most wonderfully. 
 
 has just gone down sick. He was frightened 
 
 to death in the trenches, yet very brave and cheer- 
 ful, but saw himself there for days after, and the 
 shells coming. I got C. to swop him for the Padre's 
 
 servant, who is a fit youth, so that in future 
 
 won't have to go into the trenches, which he's 
 too old for. Forty-five ! 
 
 9.30 p.m. The concert is coming to an end. 
 The padre has got them to sing ' Abide with Me.' 
 It is rather fine a starry night, the tents all 
 lighted and looking like a lamp-lit city in this 
 niche of the downs. Away to the north one of 
 these murderous battles is raging. 
 
 August 29. 
 
 I fancy we shall go into trenches for a bit before 
 we rest properly, but not, I think, for an attack. 
 
 Tremendous thunderstorm to-day, which flooded 
 our tent and the men's. 
 
 To-morrow we go for a bathe. 
 
 August 31. 
 
 No letter from you yesterday. We had a thunder- 
 storm yesterday tropical rain with the result 
 that all the tents got flooded. Ours being pitched 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 on old horse lines, we spent the day on liquid manure, 
 which does not tend to make things any cleaner 
 or oneself. In the evening we moved to this 
 camp. I rode the Coy. horse till I was stiff with 
 cold, after which I walked. We dined about 
 midnight, and are this morning shifting our tent 
 again. 
 
 Buxton still away, but the padre is still with 
 us i.e. C. and self so are flies and other bougs ! 
 
 I fear the damp won't make the country or the 
 men any healthier, as it washes the dirt about 
 and probably gets into water supplies. I am 
 afraid we shall have some working parties the 
 next few days, but I ought to have time to write 
 to you. 
 
 Please order a new Aquascutum; I have lost 
 my other and don't see a chance of getting one 
 out here. 
 
 September 2. 
 
 A pleasing Blighty one at last, and almost 
 before you get this I shall, with luck, be in Angle- 
 terre with you a-coming to see me. It's shrapnel 
 through the thigh, and hasn't been pronounced 
 on yet by the medical authorities, who have to 
 extract a bit of iron that didn't go quite through. 
 But as I plunked through the trenches knee-deep 
 in mire for six hours afterwards, more or less, it 
 can't be very bad; and I ought to get back before 
 you can think of coming here. I got it in another 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 show suddenly forced upon us, in which I was in 
 charge of the Coy., with C. only subaltern. A 
 shell plumped neatly between six of us, killed Sgt. 
 Oliver and hit the rest in divers ways. It was 
 rather a funny sensation. I thought I'd been 
 bruised. Handed over to C., who a little later 
 got badly hit in the arm. So C Coy., when I last 
 heard of it, is without officers three platoon 
 sergeants knocked out two killed both awfully 
 nice fellows, and A. rather badly hit. 
 
 Haven't had a meal since lunch yesterday, and 
 now it's lunch to-day; advanced to the attack in 
 the full height of an attack of sickness and a tempera- 
 ture up. All the troops are that, but I never 
 expected to be. It was very awkward. 
 
 Will let you know as quick as quick. 
 
 A Chaplain is addressing this.i 
 
 [September 7. Telegram from Robert from South- 
 ampton saying he was on his way to Oxford 
 where he arrived at Somerville Hospital about 
 6 p.m.] 
 
 December 2g. 
 
 [Robert left Waterloo at 11.55 a - m - f r Southamp- 
 ton, crossed that night and reached Havre next 
 day.] 
 
 1 The envelope was addressed and tigned ' L. Maclean Watt, C.F.' 
 If these lines should ever come to his notice, I here offer him my 
 thanks. -C. H. V. 
 
 175 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 INFANTRY BASE DEPOT, Sunday, December 31, 1916. 
 HAVRE. 
 
 As you will see from the above I am posted to 
 another Batt, which means only that that is the 
 one I go to when I go into the line. In the mean- 
 while I am here in quite a pretty place among a 
 pack of lads whom I don't know from Adam for 
 the most part. We had the usual quaintness in 
 crossing; arrived at Southampton, where the 
 M.L.O. took about forty times as long over his 
 job as was necessary. We were then despatched 
 in the rain to a dirty boat (good enough to breed 
 rabbits in) and then told we had just an hour to 
 go into the town and get a meal. When we got 
 back within the hour, we found that the boat was 
 not starting, so all the valises had to be carted 
 to another boat, about a half a mile away, and 
 we got off at 9 o'clock. Crowds of people, some 
 of whom slept in the gangway. I luckily secured 
 a cabin (without berths or door both had been 
 taken down for some unknown reason) and offered 
 half to a pleasant doctor-captain. An under- 
 steward offered to rent me his own cabin for the 
 night for the small sum of 255., which I refused, and 
 should like to have the authority to shoot him. 
 
 Am quite a believer in Mothersill, as I took two 
 doses and never felt a qualm, though it was rough 
 and many people ill. Breakfast on the boat half-a- 
 crown. Profit about 200 per cent. why? Went 
 
 176 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 off at Havre with the two lads who insisted on 
 breakfasting at an officer's club that one of them 
 had visited before when taking out a draft in 
 preference to a French Hotel ! After which we 
 came here by train. Brilliant criticisms of the 
 French nation on the way by the one lad who has 
 spent one day in France. Am in a hut with a 
 man named Barrett brother of Roper Barrett 
 and up at St. John's with Howard. Didn't we 
 meet him in Dorsetshire once? 
 
 Have a quite excellent temporary servant. 
 
 January i, 1917. 
 
 My kit arrived and I slep in the Jigger (Jaeger) 
 blanket and it was very pleasant. 
 
 Marched up in the rain this morning and then 
 down again at the terrible hour of 8 a.m. (breakfast 
 at 7.30) which does not suit me. But the idea of 
 making things uncomfortable for the inferior 
 people seems very dear to the heart of those who 
 do not take part in the discomforts. However, 
 it doesn't make much odds for a few days after 
 which, of course, discomforts become necessities, 
 and for that reason much more tolerable. I don't 
 expect to be here for very long. Am by months 
 the senior subaltern. 
 
 177 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 January 2. 
 
 It has been drizzling steadily for most of two 
 days. Yesterday I went a walk with Barrett 
 and a pleasant Rugby boy. Had cafe at a dirty 
 little estaminet with some French soldiers in it. 
 I am going to be inoculated to-day or to-morrow 
 and shall take a day or two off doing nothing, 
 though I don't suppose it will affect me any more 
 than last time. 
 
 Food desperately bad on the whole but nobody 
 to worry about it. 
 
 January 3. 
 
 Have just been inoculated. The doctor, a 
 Canadian, told me that he found men between 
 35 and 40 couldn't stick the trenches ! Am just 
 beginning to get a little stiff from the bougs, but 
 have forty-eight hours off. 
 
 Met a pleasant man; he has been in Canada 
 a good deal, and says that when he was very ill 
 he read Mr Faviel and it made him delirious 
 for three nights. I don't know if this is a compli- 
 ment or not. 
 
 So far I might just as well have been on leave 
 in England, as I have not done one single thing. 
 It continues to drizzle. 
 
 178 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 January 4 
 
 This is so far the second day of inoculation 
 and I've had no sensations but a slight stiffness 
 of the chest, so I don't think I'm likely to be any 
 the worse for it. As it has been raining steadily 
 for three days I am rather glad to be off all parades 
 and setting in a hut ante-room which, while the 
 bulk of the youths is away, is quite peaceful. 
 
 The only annoyance is that I might just as well 
 have had another week with you. 
 
 One doesn't feel much nearer the trenches than 
 before, and it's mostly as unreal as at Minster. 
 
 1 pass the time reading novelettes abandoned 
 by the other officers and chatting and occasionally 
 playing Bridge for money ! Have lost 70 centimes, 
 so far there's extravagance ! 
 
 2 p.m. Just before lunch Howard Elliott l and 
 two other gunners walked into our mess by mistake, 
 having just arrived from England. I gave them 
 drinks and gathered you were well. Their mess 
 is almost next door, so I may see him again if we 
 are both here for a few days. 
 
 January 5. 
 
 I am afraid that after this there will be a small 
 gap in the letters, as I start for the Line to-night. 
 
 1 Lieut. Howard Elliott, R.F.A., a cousin. 
 I 7 9 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 I have made two voyages to Havre one yester- 
 day afternoon with B. to see the sea front, which 
 is really rather fine, and one this morning with 
 Barrett and Scoville to have a very good hot bath 
 and dejeuner. I believe it takes at least forty- 
 eight hours to get up. Luckily it has turned dry, 
 if colder, and the roads have become roads again 
 instead of mud soup. Howard Elliott has just 
 been in to announce that he is going by the same 
 train so we may travel as far as Rouen together. 
 
 I think our selection of goods for the Front was 
 excellent, and I can't think of anything I want 
 beyond. 
 
 Sunday, January 7. 
 
 Having started on Friday have arrived at our 
 back lines without a cold, which is rather good. 
 The Batt. is in the tranchees, but comes out 
 shortly : as a result we have not met any of the 
 important officers as yet. I am very near where 
 I was last time and glad of it, as here the spring 
 should come earliest. I might even come across 
 your Telephoniste fran^ais. Shan't be in the 
 trenches for some days. 
 
 The scene of writing is an enormous and cold 
 hut containing about thirty officers outside, a 
 sea of mud. 
 
 1 80 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 January 9. 
 
 There isn't much news. Have spent two days 
 almost entirely in a large hut about four times 
 the size of our long barn without windows 
 and one brazier to warm it. We really are too 
 stupid at making ourselves as comfortable as 
 circumstances permit. This is an out-of-the-trenches 
 camp and should be really comfortable, but no. 
 Outside a sea of mud as far as the eye can see 
 not so deep, perhaps, as the Flanders mud, but 
 less diversified by buildings or hop poles. A 
 Service Batt. has much less grand notions of 
 comfort even than a Regular one; and personally 
 I should have sacked the staff long ago. The 
 food wug ! 
 
 The officers have just turned up some quite 
 pleasant, I think, the remainder very young and 
 temporary, but all very friendly. The Adjutant 
 is a trifle junior to me, I think, in the Army, and 
 probably about 20. Haven't seen the C.O. yet. 
 Haven't got a Coy. yet or a servant. 
 
 The weather is not very chic bitly wind and 
 rain. I almost think it would be well to send out 
 my old tunic the one I was hit in. 
 
 January n. 
 
 The Jaeger blanket is very nice and I don't 
 know what I should do without it, as it is bitly 
 
 181 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 cold. Had a bayonet practice yesterday and a 
 ride on a most charming small horse, who kept 
 bolting for about twelve miles. It is unfortunately 
 the A horse, not B. 
 
 I can't quite see the Service Batt. in comparison 
 with the Regular. They haven't nearly as good 
 an idea of making themselves comfortable, feed 
 and live like pigs, and don't get any work out of 
 the servants. Same with N.C.O.s, I should fancy, 
 but that remains to be seen. 
 
 January 12. 
 
 Am renewing my acquaintance with dug-outs, 
 and such just as bad as ever and the mud as deep 
 as I've seen it. I like the Coy. officers, what I've 
 seen of them, and think I am probably lucky in 
 that respect. I doubt if any of them have been 
 out as long as I have; but that's the way it goes. 
 The Coys, are occupied now : a couple of months 
 ago nobody to command them, so I get left again. 
 I don't really mind. 
 
 January 15. 
 
 Just a line to say very fit. Post just going. 
 Will write more to-night probably. 
 
 182 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 January 16. 
 
 Can't write very much now. Have a rather 
 beast je sore throat, but otherwise very fit, and the 
 throat is not to be wondered at, for conditions of 
 damp, dirt, and absence of fuel are a good deal 
 worse than any I have seen. Like the people of 
 the Coy. very well, and the Front seems very 
 fairly cushy and if only the warm weather would 
 come things would be much improved. 
 
 January 17. 
 
 My throat is so sore that I cannot eat or smoke; 
 and you know the complete misery that is bound to 
 ensue and how it prevents long or nice letters 
 being written. I dare say it will be better to-morrow 
 if not, I shall have to find a M.O. to give me some 
 cough lozenges. I lay all packed in my valise 
 yesterday, but took a short walk this morning 
 for a change, in about a foot of snow. Not very 
 good for the trenches when it melts. A parcel 
 from Frdk. and May very fine raisins and short- 
 bread and mints : he must be stopped. 
 
 It's very nice of Milliken 1 to want me on the 
 Staff, but no one else does. I think the point is 
 that as long as one can, one can't arrange a cushy 
 job for oneself, though if one offered it's rather 
 different. 
 
 1 Lieut. H. E. Milliken, King's Royal Rifle Corps, a friend of 
 Sheppey dayi. 
 
 183 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 January 18. 
 
 Back in the large damp hut, still with rather 
 a sore throat, but otherwise going fairly strong. 
 I don't think I should have got this but that the 
 O.C. of the Coy. is one of those sort of people who 
 don't seem to mind if they have warmth or not. 
 The consequence is that the first two days and 
 nights we sat in a dripping dug-out without a 
 fire, while four boxes of matches went sodden 
 in my pockets and the servants enjoyed two 
 braziers. Then in an excess of energy he insisted 
 on cutting up wet wood for us, so that asphyxiation 
 came very nigh. But he is quite a nice fellow. 
 
 There has been heavy snow and I'm afraid a 
 lot of men will be done in by the weather. The 
 fuel allowance should be trebled and it seems 
 instead to be halved. I should say that for dis- 
 comfort this part of the Front takes the cake, 
 from what I've seen, nor does a Service Batt. 
 know how to look after itself so well as a Regular . 
 Many of the things we do and don't do would 
 make the hair of the 3rd Batt. stand on end. 
 
 Tell Frdk. I will write sometime, but find it 
 very difficult here. 
 
 January 19. 
 
 I am so sorry that letter took so long, but I 
 think they are more erratic from here. To-day, 
 
 184 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 for instance, I received three of yours, after getting 
 none. I'm in my valise reading and writing this 
 still with my throat very sore and my voice 
 practically gone. A valise is the only place, 
 because out of bed it's impossible to keep warm 
 in this barn, with snow on the ground and freezing 
 going on; but valises are not good for writing 
 in and I hope you don't find my letters too dull 
 for words. The fact is, the light and the cold sup- 
 press me rather more than usual : it is too cold 
 to sharpen a pencil properly. I haven't meant to 
 grouse, but what with being too sore to smoke 
 and so forth, you know that I wouldn't be at my 
 friskiest. I am eating the cr^me de menthes you 
 sent me, which are very good and soothing. 
 
 January 21. 
 
 I put the igth on my last, but I think it must 
 have been nearer 2ist ! Anyway to-day, which 
 is the next day, is Sunday. My throat is getting 
 better. It is freezing away. The Jigger blanket 
 is just invaluable, and I wear Aunt Fanny's scarf 
 round my head, and between them I manage to 
 
 keep warm. Sorry won't publish my poem 
 
 ' To F. G. S.' Their letter is absurd. A poem 
 is a poem and they don't get one once in six 
 months still there you are. 
 
 185 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Tuesday 23 
 
 Just a line to say going very well. No letters 
 from you for two days, but the first parcel of tabac. 
 
 January 24. 
 
 I am much annoyed because I only wrote you 
 a postcard yesterday and that hasn't been posted. 
 I have been left behind in the damp hut with my 
 sore throat, which the M.O. refers to as laryngitis. 
 It's getting better all the time now, and I get 
 out of the Front line with it, which is not so bad 
 in this awful cold weather. Last night was probably 
 the coldest since the war started 20 deg. of frost, 
 I should think, and a bitly wind blowing, and 
 to-night promises to be as cold. Very miserable 
 for the men, but I believe when they come out we 
 have a long rest behind somewhere. I slip in and out 
 of my valise for meals ! It's much warmer in it 
 than anywhere else with my two waistcoats 
 (your Jaeger one and the new deerskin one that 
 Lily gave me) on, and my fur lining and my trench 
 coat and my blanket on top, and Aunt Fanny's 
 scarf and Frdk.'s Balaclava helmet on my head. 
 One youth here, quite a pleasing cross between 
 an eel and a monkey; very young, but might be 
 40 so blase", and wins contentedly at poker. 
 What a race we are rearing and killing, 
 
 1 86 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 I think my servant is a very decent sort of youth, 
 and he certainly has been most attentive. 
 
 January 26. 
 
 Still the hut, but I rather fancy we go out to- 
 morrow and that I shall go ahead and get the 
 billets; I shan't be sorry to be out of this as I 
 have sniffled and coughed here for the best part 
 of ten days, I think. Still freezing hard icicles 
 poking through the cracks in the hut, and a fearful 
 number of men with trench feet. I am really very 
 much better can speak now which is a nice 
 change for so great a conversationalist. 
 
 But it does all seem to show that we are still 
 more fit for war than for peace, though one had 
 begun to think the opposite. 
 
 The posts are most erratic again for 3-4 days 
 I haven't had a letter. The snow may be holding 
 things up, though it barely more than covers the 
 ground in these parts, and really yesterday and 
 to-day were beautifully sunny and nice enough 
 for a walk only I found the sharp air tickles me 
 up too much. However, if we are in billets for a 
 fortnight, I ought to find my feet. 
 
 Just got three letters from you and a parcel 
 from my mother, cakes and socks. They are most 
 o 187 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 opportune, as sure as I say I don't want anything, 
 it comes in handy. 
 
 It is no good wondering why people get things. 
 They apply mostly, I suppose ! One could get 
 them, but that isn't the idea. I don't mind saying 
 I would rather have avoided this winter, but it's 
 getting on now. 
 
 January 28. 
 
 Am in a rest village and have just had two 
 letters from you and a card from your tilephoniste 
 saying he shall be delighted to meet me if that 
 is possible. I don't know if it is, but will try to 
 find out where the French are and ride over to 
 see him if there is a chance. I billeted yesterday, 
 bicycling the six miles here with five Q.M.S.s 
 taking over the accommodation offered, which is 
 pretty bad. The Town Major is, I suppose, respon- 
 sible, but the village is very poor and anything 
 is good enough for the Infantry. For the Coy. 
 Messes there were three possible ones and one 
 impossible, which accordingly I had not the face 
 not to take for B Coy. It is a sort of cross between 
 a small cellar and a garden room stone floor 
 with four wire beds so called in it; no stove 
 and the wind whistling through the walls. When 
 we introduced a brazier, the old man and woman 
 who live in the rest of the house two quite com- 
 fortable rooms one of which I tried in vain to 
 
 1 88 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 get them to lend us for a price just to sit in 
 dashed in and protested that the ceiling would 
 be blackened ! As though the ceiling in a place 
 like our apple room mattered. They would prefer 
 us to sit without any fire in this weather. Naturally 
 I put my foot down. I think those sort of trivial 
 prejudices trivial at any time should be entirely 
 disregarded, whether they make for ententes or 
 not, in time of war. And this is the sort of place 
 where one is supposed to recuperate from the 
 trenches. All part of a bad organisation. The 
 civilians could quite easily be turned out, and 
 should be. 
 
 I'm really getting on though, and you mustn't 
 mind if I grumped a bit. You know I always do 
 when I am not at my fittest. As I say, I've escaped 
 the trenches by having a sore throat, and after 
 all, that's something. 
 
 I stayed in bed to-day (as being the warmest 
 place) till 4 p.m. when I arose and went to the 
 baths, not having had one for a month, in fact, 
 since I left Havre. That would have amused 
 you simply a hut with boards to stand on and 
 showers overhead a howling draught a Tommies' 
 bath-house after hours. Officers don't seem to 
 count on this Front ! I found the bath corporal 
 in a sort of stoke-hole by a brazier with his mates, 
 and in the stoke-hole I undressed and walked 
 about 10 yds. to the nearest shower. They had 
 no clean towels but leant me two black ones 
 
 189 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 one permanently black from stains and there- 
 with I cleaned myself and hustled back at the 
 double, and feel better for it, though, I dare say, 
 no cleaner. 
 
 At the moment we have a brazier in our cellar, 
 but the smoke is so thick that we have to open 
 the door wide every three minutes to escape being 
 suffocated. There, I am making the very worst 
 of things and they aren't really so bad. 
 
 My servant is excellent, and in time, I think, 
 things will march better. There's no side, which 
 I like. 
 
 January 30. 
 
 I am getting better and better. I went for a 
 ride yesterday on the Coy. mare a stupid, clumsy 
 creature; lazy too, with enough go to shy at some 
 drums and barge me into a lot of led horses, stam- 
 peding about six in front of an old General ! I 
 also brought off another feat, viz., bribing a French 
 woman to cook for us while we are here. The 
 others had tried in vain, but I persuaded her; 
 the result was that we started off last night with 
 the best dinner I've had in France in war-time. 
 Tapioca soup, fish, mutton, and compote of 
 vegetables, and a sweet omelette. She is a widow, 
 lost her husband in the war, and has a small girl, 
 and a baby-boy born after the husband was killed. 
 
 190 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 They live here in a broken-down hovel, but of 
 course she can cook ten times as well as any rifle- 
 man. 
 
 I'm having plenty of sleep; generally breakfast 
 in bed : we all do, as it's too cold to get up and 
 eat it without a fire, and altogether am living in 
 great luxury. 
 
 February i. 
 
 Letters seem to be coming a little more regularly. 
 Also it has snowed again and is on the whole a 
 little warmer, especially as we have taken on a 
 sort of small hall at the French lady's hovel, 
 removed a broken stove and got an open fire going. 
 You mustn't think I'm having any hardships : 
 you might call them discomforts, perhaps, but 
 nothing more than that, and really at present 
 I'm getting fitter daily and eating like a pig. 
 
 The Welsh boy is very nice, and I like him better 
 all the time. 
 
 About the question you asked whether we 
 make better dug-outs? As far as this Front is 
 concerned No ! There are none in some places 
 and very poor ones in others, nor have I ever 
 seen a more uncomfortable part of the line quite 
 apart from the severity of the weather. 
 
 191 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Saturday, February 3. 
 
 I think last night was about the coldest we've 
 had, but apart from the cold there is really nothing 
 much to complain of. It's exactly the sort of 
 weather one had at Zuoz a little more wind 
 perhaps, but if one were skating or ski-ing, good 
 enough. When one is standing about doing nothing, 
 it is distinctly cool. 
 
 Still the rest village and for some days to come. 
 
 Don't pass on my grousings too much, or every- 
 body will think me a pig. I'm really feeling better 
 all the time, though sneefs and coughs will not 
 entirely vanish, which isn't to be wondered at 
 seeing that we sit over a bonfire and freeze alter- 
 nately. The cooking here goes very well. Madame 
 reminds me very much of Elise in appearance, 
 but is very mournful-looking. The small girl 
 rather taking and always beaming. 
 
 Sunday, February 4 ox 5. 
 
 I wrote yesterday and there's no news, but I 
 just send a line. Madame has now offered us her 
 inner apartment with a real stove in it, so that 
 we now have the best mess in the place. I suppose 
 we made a goocl impression on her. 
 
 The Guiachum lozenges have arrived; please 
 thank my mother for them. I have passed on 
 
 192 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 some to my servant, who, with half the Batt., 
 has also a sore throat. 
 
 February 7. 
 
 Just a line to say that we have moved to another 
 place, where I took over the billets from a fatuous 
 Town Major full of muddles. The descent from 
 Madame's cooking to our Rifleman is considerable. 
 The cold is considerable, with a cutting wind 
 such as we had in Finland. But I am better all 
 the time and found my name had been put down 
 for a cushy job behind the lines consisting of 
 staying behind and paying out money to the 
 Division apparently on the strength of my having 
 had a sore throat. Not feeling inclined to do the 
 job, I went to the man at present commanding 
 and asked him to select somebody else, which he 
 has done. I don't fancy he knew that I had been 
 out before or knows now. Sich is life in the Army. 
 
 I have taken to wearing my pony-skin gloves 
 all day and shall soon be as addicted to gloves as 
 any one, I fear. But the cold is sich that you can't 
 feel your hands without. 
 
 My throat is much better. One of the officers 
 of another Coy. I found to-day quite speechless 
 and evidently with bad influenza, shifting camp 
 like anybody else instead of being sent to hospital. 
 And it really is most bitter weather. 
 
 193 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 We have just heard the likelihood of the States 
 coming in. I hope they will, if only that one will 
 be able to treat them as human beings after the 
 war, instead of as shirkers. 
 
 February 7 (9?). 
 
 We have rather a comfortable hut here, luckily, 
 as the wind is tearing cold. I don't know when 
 I've known it more bitly. We are where I told 
 you and nowhere else, in spite of what somebody 
 may have heard to the contrary. I don't think 
 I shall be able to get to your telephoniste for some 
 time : can't find out where he is yet, but you never 
 know when you may strike any one. This is rather 
 a quaint Battalion. I haven't seen a man in the 
 Coy. yet, except by accident. They're mostly 
 away on fatigues somewhere else, and one might 
 arrive in the trenches without having known any 
 of them. Not good. I can't make out who is 
 responsible. 
 
 I'm very fit in spite of the cold : one's blankets 
 get all dripping wet at night where one's breath 
 freezes and melts again. A parcel from Frdk. 
 last night. Please thank him when you write. 
 Haven't washed to-day so far 3 p.m. owing 
 to water being frozen up and unobtainable. We 
 have been very lucky to be out during this weather, 
 as one can get gradually acclimatised to it and it 
 can't last indefinitely anyhow. 
 
 194 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 Oh, Vanity Fair came in Frdk.'s parcel 
 from Mrs Jenkinson. Very kind of her. 
 
 February 10. 
 
 Just going up. Very fitly. Two parcels arrived 
 most opportunely the Richoux sweets from you 
 and a parcel from my mother. The sweets already 
 finished and much appreciated. Last night was, 
 I think, the coldest I've ever felt in a small hut 
 without a door and the wind raging through. 
 The water left in a glass froze solid inside. I 
 think I ought to be some use, as I don't think, 
 comparatively, they know very much about hold- 
 ing a line. 
 
 February 12. 
 
 Out again, but have slept so long that I've only 
 time to send a line. Am very fit. It was most 
 bitly in the trenches. I think I've never been so 
 cold. No fire, no dug-out, and below zero. But 
 very little shelling. 
 
 February 13. 
 
 It is much milder and I expect next time we 
 shall be up to our knees in mud. It certainly was 
 most bitly cold; the men dug out lumps of ice to 
 fill their canteens with, and in the early morning 
 
 195 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 the frost settled all over me. I think the men 
 seem cheery in spite of not being smart, which 
 is perhaps the best thing. 
 
 There are tons of things I want to tell you but 
 I can't at the moment think of them. 
 
 February 14. 
 
 Just a line before going up. There's no news. 
 It still freezes fairly hard by night, and thaws 
 rather by day. Except for the wind it wouldn't 
 be bad far better than mud. Didn't have a letter 
 to-day, but they still arrive in twos or threes mostly. 
 
 February 19. 
 
 I am afraid there will be a gap between my 
 last letter and this, but the fact is that we don't 
 seem able to send back letters from the trenches, 
 or at any rate don't have it done. Out now, after 
 a fairly peaceful time, though we were lucky too, 
 I think. The cold first, and then mud later, when 
 it thawed, were pretty bad not so much for us, 
 who had a dug-out (Boche) to retire to, as for the 
 men who hadn't. 
 
 I found that two hours standing about over the 
 ankles in icy water in ordinary boots froze me up, 
 but was nothing like so cold as last time, when 
 we spent all the time in the open trench. The 
 Boche is very sensible in that way. The whole 
 
 196 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 front, however, is extraordinarily desolate in this 
 weather : pock-marked with frozen shell-holes, 
 every kind of abandoned material lying about, 
 and bodies in ghastly attitudes, just as they fell 
 and were constricted to the ground by the frost 
 immovably until the winter chooses to give up its 
 dead. I think if everybody could see these scenes, 
 the general horror would somehow find the way 
 out, which ordinary morals and intelligence don't 
 seem to. The time the men have while they live 
 is bad enough; it's pathetically absurd to see 
 them plunging about in the mire, laden to the teeth, 
 falling into shell-holes in the dark, getting stuck 
 fast, cursing and patient, and half of them ill 
 enough to be in bed or hospital in peace-time. 
 I pulled one little man ahead of me eight times 
 out of mud holes into which he had fallen in the 
 course of about 200 yards, as we came out. 
 
 Am at the moment in a little sausage-shaped 
 iron hut with room for two, but four of us in it. 
 
 Rather amusing this afternoon a greatcoat 
 inspection ordered. B Coy., as a whole, has mud 
 still wet plastered on up to the arm-pits, but no 
 doubt some Brigadier was made happy by knowing 
 that an inspection had been held. 
 
 February 21. 
 
 No news. Out for some time and quite mild 
 weather, which is very nice for a change. 
 
 197 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 The gingerbread and all the other things have 
 arrived; and the gingerbread is very good and 
 much appreciated and opportune. And the pipe 
 is very good. The towel came into instant use 
 as a pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 has got a temperature; has bad 
 
 malaria, and a sprained ankle. So that we 
 
 may be described as a crocky lot on the whole. 
 We are in our most comfortable camp, however, 
 and doing well. 
 
 February 26. 
 
 Arrived back in camp in the early hours of this 
 morning to find five letters from you and one 
 from my mother. But I am so sleepy still that I 
 can hardly keep my eyes open. I was given charge 
 of D Coy. about an hour before we went (its captain 
 being on leave) and was given quite one of the 
 least pleasant parts of the line I have seen. Luckily, 
 we only had two men wounded, though the shelling 
 was incessant and the noise considerable, and, worst 
 of all, the shortage of water sich that on the last 
 day we had nothing at all to drink from breakfast 
 onwards. It doesn't suit me to be a camel, as you 
 know, and I was fairly tired when I got in, largely 
 from want of drink, though the mud was terrible 
 and many men arrived in the trench without 
 anything on their feet at all ! I will try to describe 
 
 198 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 it later, when I'm less sleepy, but some of the 
 things you would like to know are just what I 
 mustn't tell you. 
 
 About morphia. The M.O.s out here vary 
 according to their experience, and I've heard one 
 imploring officers to carry morphia. In many 
 cases it isn't to save life but to alleviate agony 
 for those who must die. Look at the case of the 
 man Shafto got the M.C. for going to give some 
 to blown out of the trenches on to the barbed 
 wire, quite immovable and dying in great pain, 
 and in any part you may see twenty such. This 
 ground is strewn with the dead who might have 
 been eased a little earlier. I quite admit that it's 
 probably a very dangerous doing, but it's worth 
 taking risks on some occasions. It would be best 
 if all officers knew as far as possible when to and 
 when not to give it. 
 
 I think I managed the Coy. moderately all 
 right. Of course it's not much fun running some- 
 body else's Coy. temporarily when you know 
 none of them. Found several lads there whom I 
 used to conduct on working parties to Warden 
 Point in May, 1915. 
 
 I'm just desperately sleepy. 
 
 February 27. 
 
 When I wrote to you yesterday, I had just 
 received five letters from you. The same evening 
 
 199 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 three more arrived, so that I got eight yesterday. 
 Sich are the posts 1 
 
 I'm ashamed when Billy 1 writes about my refusing 
 cushy jobs like that. You ought not to pass it on. 
 It's not valour at all mere conceit. If I were 
 offered a good cushy job, I should probably jump 
 at it. 
 
 I said I'd tell you about the line. 
 
 We were to go up in gum-boots, and the authori- 
 ties carefully provided a large number of size 5, 
 with the result that nobody could get into them; 
 and before we could get large ones two-and-a-half 
 hours had passed and we had to go up in the pitch 
 dark. I've never seen it pitchier, and the first 
 hour was a long succession of splashes as men fell 
 off into shell-holes full of water. I fell off three 
 times myself, but luckily missed shell-holes. We 
 took six hours to do a two-and-a-half hours' walk; 
 and some of the men arrived some hours later 
 without anything on their feet ! The trench 
 impassable, and you can imagine how warm they 
 feel at the end of a day or two sitting or stand- 
 ing in that sort of half-frozen liquid mud. The 
 youths and I had a Boche dug-out the most 
 uncomfortable one I've seen, and as filthy as 
 filthy, and there was lots of works on and very 
 little water and plenty of shells. However, we 
 managed very well, though I was glad to get 
 out of it all. The O.C. will be back to-day or 
 
 1 Mr L. W. Clarke, an old school friend. 
 200 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 to-morrow to take over, which I shan't mind, as 1 
 don't like having some one else's Coy. A very 
 sad thing happened. An officer just arrived back 
 had been out before for a long time went out 
 on patrol from my trench, got back safe to his 
 own, and when some shrapnel came over a little 
 later, fell down dead untouched. I suppose he 
 must have been very wrought up, or a weak heart, 
 or something of that kind. A very good man too, 
 he was. 
 
 Who do you think came into my dug-out at 
 dead of night and chatted for an hour? Hilaire 
 Belloc not the one, but his son, a very taking 
 youth of about 18, most intelligent, in the R.E.s. 
 He'd come up to site a trench and we chatted of 
 G. K. C. and Bentley. He knew Daly that nice 
 boy who had been killed at Guillemont and had 
 been trying to find his grave. I was very pleased 
 with him and thought the R.E.s had got hold of 
 somebody good at last ! 
 
 The D Sgt. -Major, rather a nice old boy an 
 ex-policeman fatherly and amiable, . but consider- 
 ably lost in the trenches, I think, and would 
 be happier at an island of Charing Cross. 
 
 D Coy. O.C. just returned. You must not worry 
 about gaps between letters. It's unavoidable. 
 The thing that alarmed you [Le Transloy] wasn't 
 far off. 
 
 201 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 February 28. 
 
 This is a line-and-a-half letter. I sent you a 
 longish one yesterday and not much has happened 
 since, except that we stood to in the middle of 
 the night for an attack and ate the ginger-cake, 
 which was very good. I don't know that a monthly 
 tooth-brush is required, because it's only very 
 occasionally one has the chance of cleaning one's 
 teeth, and I've still only had one bath since joining 
 the Batt. The fact is that it seems to be the 
 maid-of-all-work to the Brigade, unlike the 3rd, 
 which was upper parlour-maid, so to speak, and 
 they never seem to give us proper rest. The men 
 barely get down from the trenches before they 
 are up again carrying, sore feet or no. They go 
 sick pretty often, but that's no wonder. 
 
 is just going off sick, and we shall be three 
 
 who a little time ago were eight. Of course, the 
 weather has a lot to do with things. There' s a 
 raw cold on again now and much mud, but I seem 
 to keep very fit. 
 
 Spurling is a very good fellow. I like him better 
 all the time, and if I haven't got Coys., I've been 
 very lucky with Coy. O.C.s. 
 
 March I. 
 
 It's the nicest day we've had out here, from 
 the weather point of view, which is something, 
 and will be more if it continues. 
 
 202 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 I had a working party last night a fairly clean 
 night, not bad for carrying in, and very few shells 
 the only drawback being that there was a mess 
 and we were kept waiting about doing nothing 
 for one-and-a-half hours. Sich is life in the Army. 
 I lay in bed till lunch time, and now I haven't a 
 great deal of time to write in. I know my letters 
 ought to be much better and more interesting, 
 but somehow dullness is the thing that oppresses 
 one out here, or at least me, and I haven't the 
 sperrit to rise above it. 
 
 Have just written to that officer's wife, as it 
 probably rather adds to her grief that he was not 
 among people he knew at all. 
 
 March 5. 
 
 Just come back from a tour in the tranchees, 
 and as this may go early to-morrow morning, I 
 am sending you a line and a half just to tell you 
 that I am fit. It snowed pretty heavily last night, 
 and the night before was a sharp frost about 
 15 or 20 degrees, I should say, which made us as 
 cold as mud, as we ran out of coke. 
 
 Trenches very dull and noisy not many casual- 
 ties. 
 
 203 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 March 7. 
 
 I feel rather a thneak because I didn't write to 
 you yesterday to make up for the scrabby one of 
 the night before, but the fact is, I had my second 
 bath. You might not think that would prevent 
 it, but as a matter of fact, B. and I, after sleeping 
 till nearly lunch time, set out directly after in 
 search of a bath and didn't get back till dinner 
 and bedtime. We voyaged to the village partly 
 on foot, partly in a motor belonging to an old 
 Roads Capt., and partly by a big lorry about 
 nine miles. The baths were real baths of aged 
 tin, and the water was as hot as hot, and when we 
 got out we both said, we hope we shall get a lorry 
 back, as we felt remarkably feeble. We did get a 
 lift another way in an Anzac lorry, and also in one 
 driven by a Belgian spy, but had to go out of our 
 way as our road was blocked; and in the end 
 were dropped about six miles from camp. I got 
 better as we went on, but B. got worse so much 
 so that we had to stop every 100 yards or so to 
 rest him, and I thought I should have to leave him 
 and go and get some whiskey to bring him back. 
 It's an odd result of a bath, but I suppose due to 
 not having had one for a month or more. I certainly 
 felt extraordinarily tottery too, though I think 
 we're both all the better for it to-day, besides 
 being clean once more. 
 
 The weather has turned bitter again a raging 
 204 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 wind which is freezing the ground hard. I'm all 
 by my lone in a hut without a fire, the others having 
 gone to the local ' Coliseum ' in the hope, as B. 
 says, that the congested humanity there will help 
 to warm them. 
 
 We started your cake to-day and it's nearly 
 gone already very very good. 
 
 I might possibly get left out of the trenches 
 next time, as, if possible, we take turns, but so 
 many officers have gone sick or hit that we may 
 be rather short. One youth was shot in the dug- 
 out I was in when I had D Coy. through the 
 thigh by a man cleaning his rifle. Rather annoy- 
 ing sort of way to be wounded. 
 
 I don't think there is much news of our last tour; 
 the last few hours were horribly cold, and you 
 couldn't move about at all; but Spurling is a very good 
 sort to be with, and an excellent Coy. Commander, 
 my only criticism being that he does too much 
 himself instead of making other people do it. 
 I came down with the Sgt.-Major (who was an 
 old 3rd Batt. man, not that he's more than 28 now, 
 I should think, but served with the ist during the 
 retreat from Mons and was full of reminiscences. 
 He's very good, I think, and I think the men are 
 very good and cheery too. 
 
 March 8. 
 
 It's gone excessively cold again a bitter, raging, 
 freezing wind, and I'm very glad we're not in the 
 
 205 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 trenches, and hope you haven't got it, as it won't 
 be very nice in the garden for you. Had a short 
 parade this morning and was glad to flee in and 
 set by a smoky but warm fire. 
 
 Nothing suggests itself to be written about, 
 though I dare say there may be plenty. I think 
 it's true, as I've just heard Spurling and B. saying, 
 that you can't settle to a letter when you're cold, 
 and much smoke in your eyes doesn't assist. So 
 you must take the will for the deed. 
 
 I believe almost for certain that I shall not be 
 in the trenches next time. 
 
 March 9. 
 
 I would like a letter, not having had one for some 
 days. I'm afraid it's U-boats or something, and 
 will work both ways, and we shall each get bunches 
 when they do come, and the ones you get will be 
 dull bunches. What with having no letters and a 
 jump in my right eye, I feel a little flat; also, it 
 has snowed mostly all day, which is stupid when 
 one had begun to think the spring might be coming. 
 I have been Orderly Officer to-day, which meant 
 doing nothing whatever which, considering the 
 weather, I didn't mind at all. 
 
 Think this must be finished to-morrow, as much 
 smoke is going into my eyes. 
 
 206 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 March 10. I have just been to the local Coliseum 
 will tell you more to-morrow. No letters yet. 
 
 March 11 (I think). 
 
 Probably send you a long letter to-morrow. Am 
 staying down for a Court-Martial. Have had six 
 letters from you in last twenty-four hours, so am 
 much bucked. 
 
 March 1917. 
 
 I must write you a properly long letter between 
 to-day and to-morrow, and answer some of the 
 questions in the six letters I've just got. 
 
 This is started in another hut a little further 
 down the road, where I am dwelling with two 
 officers of C Coy. The weather is full of heavy 
 showers, but much milder. 
 
 There is no leave on not that I should have 
 any if there was. 
 
 You asked if there were any spring flowers here 
 the only sign of life is some dull gray grass here 
 and there which has come out since the snow 
 melted. It doesn't look, in this pitted country, 
 as though anything like a flower could ever come 
 out. 
 
 Sorry Milliken has gone out again. I doubt if 
 he should have. It's rather annoying the differ- 
 ences. A youth who has just come tells me that 
 
 207 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 his colonel at home was going to send nobody out 
 for the second time until all those who had not 
 been out before had gone. Which seems only fair. 
 
 The tunic is very good, but I haven't had the 
 courage to get out of my woolly one, especially 
 as the latter goes over both waistcoats Lily's 
 deerskin and the Jigger one you gave me. 
 
 I am sorry about the poem, but it is rather odd, 
 considering the amount of bosh that is printed, 
 that unassuming poetry should not stand a chance 
 even with the self -considered literary papers. 
 However, I seem born to miss the mark. 
 
 I enclose letters from Billy and the Medicine 
 Man. 1 I suppose people do want to know what 
 it's like here, but very few who have satisfied 
 that knowledge would want to go on adding to it. 
 Of course those boys who write home that it's the 
 time of their lives may be doing it from sporting 
 
 motives. I know always maintains that 
 
 people at home should not be informed, and he 
 tells his people that he is enjoying himself 
 thoroughly. That is rather nice, but I'm not sure 
 if it really works. 
 
 We are no longer three but five. Hence I am 
 staying behind, but I don't know that one is 
 overworked anyhow. You can't do more than 
 a certain amount, and that is perhaps better than 
 doing nothing in this appalling country. 
 
 1 Dr. O. Hilton. 
 
 208 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 March 14. 
 
 I'm a little shaky about the date, but I rather 
 fancy it's Wednesday or Thursday, and I'm still 
 resting. The weather is storm-like heavy down- 
 pours with intervals of sun. We have breakfast 
 in bed, where we shave and wash (?) and get up 
 for lunch inspect some rifles after it, and then 
 one's duty is o'er for the day, so that I ought to 
 have time to write. The only remaining difficulties 
 are that one's eyes are usually full of smoke. 
 
 talks his head off in a very interesting way, 
 
 and as one does nothing at all there is not much 
 to write about. However, I did get off a short 
 scrap to my mother yesterday, and might attempt 
 Frdk. and Billy to-day. 
 
 March 18. 
 
 Just got up ii a.m. and still in camp, so 
 you see I have been living a life of luxury and ease. 
 Might not have been, because, shortly after your 
 last letter went off, an old magazine exploded 
 in the camp we had been in for days and demolished 
 things. We became aware of it by an awful roar, 
 followed by earth and stones falling in our hut 
 here half a mile away. The sort of thing that 
 in peace-time would fill the front pages of the 
 newspapers. Crater about four times the size of 
 
 209 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 the one you saw at East church. Sich are some 
 of the incidents while in rest, though to be sure 
 they are not exactly common. One little bugler 
 I assisted to dig out about a quarter-of-an-hour 
 later, said, as he was unearthed ' Ah'm one of 
 the looky beggars, ah am.' He was the colour 
 of this paper and deadly sick, and couldn't stand. 
 They are plucky, most of these men. 
 
 I wish the war were nearer a finish. I suppose it 
 will be if they can squash the submarines. 
 
 March 19. 
 
 Just going up on a very fine day. It's rather 
 
 contradictious that , who likes soldiering, 
 
 should be made a Colonel in Ireland, isn't it? 1 
 think I should make quite a good Irish Colonel. 
 
 Getting appointed to Roads jobs, and such, is 
 not usually a compliment. The worst of this war 
 is that the cushy jobs are not the honourable ones, 
 as a rule; though it may be that one cannot stand 
 the trenches. Only a percentage can in this weather. 
 
 FIELD SERVICE POST CARD. 
 
 March 21. 
 
 I am quite well. Letter follows at first oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 210 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 March 22. 
 
 Being forrard, this isn't writing time, but things 
 are rather different at the moment, as you may 
 see in the papers, and for us at present safer than 
 I've ever known them. Also a groom has come 
 hither, and can take back a letter, so I'm writing 
 one at two minutes' notice, and it won't be very 
 long. Bitly cold; I don't think I've been colder 
 than the last three nights; but the snow has 
 knocked the wind down and made it a bit warmer. 
 We are in a ruined house in a ruined village, and 
 in the far sky is the smoke of many burning villages. 
 
 March 24. 
 
 Just a line to say I'm out, very slipsy after sich 
 bitly weather that I was too cold even to sleep ! 
 Found pipe and pipe-cleaners just when I wanted 
 it; also a very fine parcel from my mother. Things 
 are so difficult to get out here now that these gifts 
 have become extra valuable. 
 
 That was a very nice letter your mother copied 
 for me she could not wish a better. 
 
 Very fit, in spite of the cold, and hoping that 
 the Boches are really getting it somewhere. 
 
 211 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 March 25. 
 
 I sent you a snippet last night to say we were 
 out. We had rather an interesting time, and but 
 for the extreme coolth it would have been a nice 
 change. 
 
 The newspapers will probably have given you 
 some idea of it, but as usual they are grossly exag- 
 gerated and unduly optimistic, though no doubt 
 things are moving forward considerably. We 
 spent some days in a ruined room in a ruined 
 village with snowdrops poking out of the shell- 
 holes in the garden and saw cavalry on the go. 
 Spurling and I also went for what looked like a 
 country walk and got in a spinney rather larger 
 than -the one on the way to the Lordship, which 
 the Boches then shelled for half an hour, while 
 we dodged around and around trying to get out. 
 Just as we did, I heard another coming, got under 
 a bank and shouted to him to. He did so just as the 
 shell burst on the road not five yards ahead of him. 
 I never saw a shell so near, and never without 
 doing some damage, but luckily it fell over his 
 head and just in front of him, so that he was 
 behind it, which is, I believe, the best position to 
 be in. The one that hit me at Delville was three 
 times as far away. 
 
 It was one of the kind that you can hear go off 
 perhaps six miles away, and then after a minute, 
 
 212 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 just the faintest whirr before it bursts with a 
 terrific crash. 
 
 The Germans seem to be behaving abominably; 
 that is in keeping with their traditions apparently, 
 but it makes me feel that they won't realise the 
 war till they have had their own houses deliber- 
 ately blown up by a number of insulting fiends. 
 Losing colonies or navies doesn't affect the indi- 
 viduals at all closely, and though they mayn't 
 have the guilt of their Government, I think they 
 have to bear the punishment of the crimes they 
 commit to order. 
 
 Now I must stop as I am taking the Coy. to 
 get baths and hope to get one myself. 
 
 March 26. 
 
 I've just got a letter from you. 
 
 I don't think I should be like - . But, of 
 course, one has to remember that a good many 
 people's nerves do go wrong in the war, and it 
 won't be over for them even when peace is declared. 
 That is one of the penalties of war, I suppose. 
 You cannot go in and kill one another and then 
 say suddenly ' We've had enough '; though, 
 I dare say, for the majority the thing will be nothing 
 but a dull memory. 
 
 27. I didn't get this letter off by yesterday's 
 post owing to a beastje early parade combined with 
 too much smoke in the eyes. We are too utterly 
 
 213 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 foolish about these things. The Boches have 
 standardised a small stove with funnel to take 
 the smoke away, and have it in every dug-out (one 
 of their jokes is to leave a bomb in the mouth of 
 the stove-pipe when they retire), whereas we, 
 every time we go to a new camp, just hunt about 
 for some expensive can, knock holes in it, burn 
 wet wood in it, and sit with smoke in our eyes and 
 the oily grease and soot spoiling everything in the 
 place. The cost of the stove and pipe is probably 
 less than the cost of every can we destroy. I 
 think Chowser 1 is right and Picardy has the worst 
 climate in Europe. It has snowed and sludged and 
 sleeted for the last ten days, in spite of which 
 I seem to keep remarkably fit. 
 
 I'm afraid I'm an Epicurean thrown among 
 Stoics. It's rather crushing (and, no doubt, a 
 form of Nemesis) when my stomach turns at some 
 horrible dish to find them all smacking their lips 
 over it. I have to be fastidious all by my lone ! 
 
 You know how they say Tommies always grouse, 
 and dismiss it cheerfully as a peculiarity of the 
 Tommy. Personally, I think they grouse very 
 little at the inevitable things and are as cheerful 
 and patient as possible. What they grouse at is 
 the unnecessary discomforts, and so do I. They 
 can see as plainly as any one that to sit in the cold 
 and wet with fuel all round you is absurd; to 
 get a bath in two months when they might have 
 
 1 Mr Maurice Wilkinson, F.R. Hist. $., a friend from Oxford days. 
 214 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 one once a week, is somebody's mismanagement. 
 And when they grouse, somebody ought to suffer 
 instead of the matter being lightly dismissed as a 
 humorous trait of the private soldier; or else, 
 after the war, they will grouse in earnest at all 
 the want of organisation for which they were not 
 responsible, but somebody else was. Of course 
 some things are well done, but a lot are not. 
 
 Post goes soon, and this is written in bed after 
 breakfast. What luxury. 
 
 March 30. 
 
 I'm writing this in a tent in a camp in the middle 
 of a sea of mud, near a small ruined French town, 
 weather squally snow or rain but tent pretty 
 dry. We sleep on very muddy scraps of board : 
 with a Boche stove in the middle which keeps us 
 pretty warm a Feld Ofen. On the table is 
 a Madonna of painted plaster rather good- 
 looted by one of the servants from . the ruins of 
 the church, I suppose. We also have an arm-chair 
 with a broken spring very comfortable, and a 
 cane chair both collected from cellars. Very 
 safe position so far as one can judge, but not a good 
 place for writing letters. My servant went off 
 three days ago to munitions, and I have instead 
 an elderly gentleman (probably 35) of charming 
 manners, who used to cook for us. 
 
 215 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 I have just been offered a musketry course, 
 and think I have evaded it. Don't expect any 
 letters at present. 
 
 March 31 
 
 Nothing has been doing to-day except hail- 
 storms, and I've sat all day in the tent, mostly 
 putting wood on the Feld Ofen. It's too horribly 
 miry to want a walk : also it's not worth getting 
 wet when one hasn't a change of clothes. I believe 
 we move on a bit to-morrow, and I'm afraid letters 
 will be sparse and long on the way, so you mustn't 
 expect much in that line. It's not bad here at 
 all : my main objection is that it's still too cold 
 to sleep properly. One wakes up frizzed at inter- 
 vals. But I suppose every day is a step further 
 from winter, even if it isn't a step nearer summer. 
 I don't think the men get so much of the cold as 
 they are squeezed into tents like peas in a pod, 
 and so warm one another even when wet through. 
 Whether that makes for health, however, is doubt- 
 ful, I should think. I would give a good deal for 
 leave, but there seems not the slightest chance of it. 
 
 I return the Frenchman's letter : he certainly 
 writes very well. It's the lack of self -consciousness, 
 I imagine. Send him my congratulations on his 
 Croix de Guerre when you write. I don't know 
 what the attack was, but evidently a good deal 
 east of where they were. 
 
 April i. Bustling off for billets. 
 216 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 April 4. 
 
 Just another line to say very fitly. We are in 
 another village farm kitchen with ceiling but 
 no roof, and a large brick fireplace on which we 
 burn rafters and suchlike the best fires I've seen 
 in France. We sleep on boards slung halfway 
 down the wall and the servants sleep underneath. 
 The country ahead comparatively unspoilt; but 
 every village bashed in completely not a cottage 
 left in places three times the size of Standon. 
 Quite heavy snow last night, but the billet is nice 
 and warm, unlike most places we've been in. 
 Went for a walk with B. yesterday to see our front. 
 
 I've got your beautiful cake, and it's more than 
 half eaten at the first go. It's very fine and good. 
 Shortbread from Frdk. and a parcel from my 
 mother arrived at same time, which is unusual 
 but most useful, as we get further from our base 
 of supplies. 
 
 Haven't time to send more this time. 
 
 April 5. 
 
 It's quite a fine day and I believe we move up 
 a bit. Edith's parcel has arrived, very good, please 
 thank her very much for it; and the cheroots, 
 also very good, as is the pipe and the sweets and 
 
 217 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 the handkerchief which you sent with that particu- 
 larly good cake, which vanished away within twenty 
 four hours, large as it was. 
 
 Didn't you ask if I had had any conversation with 
 the C.O. ? Well, I haven't. Every one seems to 
 think him extremely competent. He strikes me 
 as far more able than any one I have met yet. 
 
 I had a nice ride yesterday over country almost 
 unshelled on the Coy. horse, which has been clipped 
 and goes like the wind on turf quite a different 
 beast from what it is on the road. 
 
 We have been most comfortable in this billet, 
 with a fire almost too hot to sit by. 
 
 Yes, I got 'The Sergeant,' 1 but haven't heard 
 it sung yet. 
 
 Easter Sunday, April 8. 
 
 I suppose you have been to the Early Service, 
 haven't you? And is it a fine day as it is here, 
 after a beast je one yesterday? 
 
 We are in most luxurious quarters more or 
 less at the Front a farm stables practically un- 
 injured by the retiring Boches. It has not been clent 
 for ages, but the ' nures ' [manures] are nice and soft, 
 and I have just slept on a spring mattress gathered 
 in from the adjoining ruins. We also have tables 
 
 1 A musical setting of his poem The Sergeant t by a stranger, Mr 
 F. G. Ladds, who, having read the poem in the newspaper, had written 
 asking to be allowed to set it to music. 
 
 218 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 and chairs dotted among the nure-heaps, and a 
 small artificial Christmas tree, evidently left by 
 the Boches. Our last shelter was not so good, 
 being the ruins of the Manse in another village. 
 The snow and wind blew through it and the chimney 
 beam caught fire and threatened to bring the 
 chimbley on top of us, so we had to go cold 
 which it was. There is no exaggeration about the 
 state these villages are left in. The Boches cut out 
 a brick or two at intervals in every house wall, 
 insert explosives, and bring the whole thing down, 
 so that often you can sit under the gables as they 
 rest on the ground with the whole house and all 
 the contents ground to dust below. 
 
 The advantage to us of this destruction is that 
 everywhere now there is fuel broken beams and 
 laths and doors and chairs with which one can 
 mostly keep big fires going. The military advantage 
 to them is less than nothing. 
 
 I am glad America is coming in. I suppose 
 there is no doubt now. If so, the Boches must 
 feel themselves coming very close to the pit they 
 digged for others, unless their submarines can 
 work miracles. 
 
 Send your telephoniste my congratulations on 
 his Croix de Guerre. He has what every soldier 
 must desire the recognition of his valour. 
 
 I think it will be summer soon, and perhaps the 
 war will end this year and I shall see my Pretty 
 One again. 
 
 Q 219 
 
LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 
 
 WAR OFFICE. 
 
 Deeply regret to inform you that 2nd Lieut. 
 R. E. VernMe, Rifle Brigade, died of wounds, 
 April ninth. The Army Council express their 
 sympathy. Secretary, War Office. 
 
 W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD. 
 
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