Robert Ernest Vernede - Novelist/Poet

[salesie]

I can only echo Marina's and Kim's comments; thanks, Andy.

What has always struck me the most is the brief coldness of the official telegrams. I know, with the vastness of the beast, that nothing more was possible, but, nontheless, this brief matter of factness always leaves me wondering of the deep pain that must have been felt by all the wives, mothers, fathers, sisters, sons and daughters, who were simply left with a sheet of paper in return for a loved one. Perhaps compassion was the greatest casualty of all?

Robert's poem to his wife is his most personal of all; perhaps having more than a telegram, in some way, eased C.H.'s pain, but I doubt it. Here's a poem of my own, in no way as good as Robert's work, but it is my own tribute to all those who suffered.

Cheers - salesie.

Lost.

Any news of Tommy? Just this telegram!

All brown and neat but tainted black.

They seem to forget that I’m his Mam.

Handed to me by that young boy Sam,

Knocked on our door, came down the track.

Any news of Tommy? Just this telegram!

Came over all faint, had to lean on the jamb,

When stuck in my hand from out of his sack.

They seem to forget that I’m his Mam.

Perhaps he’s not dead, led like a poor lamb,

Only caught with a small piece of flak?

Any news of Tommy? Just this telegram!

Tore off the edge; hope shored the dam.

A few polite lines; he’s never coming back.

They seem to forget that I’m his Mam.

Down to the floor with a mighty wham.

"Oh, Mrs Atkins! I’ll run and get Jack."

Any news of Tommy? Just this telegram!

They seem to forget that I’m his Mam.

© John Sales 2002.

[marina]

I suppose they used the telegraph for speed and it would appear cold. Must have been a heart stopping moment to see one coming - and as you say, the message so stark. But I don't suppose a longer 'softer' communication would have helped anyway. Letters following later from officer and comrades would mean more.

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Thank you Marina, Kim and Salesie,It has been my pleasure to type these up. I maybe should have started from the beginning, before he arrived in France, and was still training with the Battalion in England to complete the story.

As you have no doubt guessed I am a fan Of Robert's work so entering all the posts was a pleasure and I still have a bit more to post re Robert.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

Roberts death was reported by the O.C. of the 62nd Field Ambulance (France)

[stiletto_33853]

With a letter from the War Office notifying C.H.

[marina]

I wonder why the second letter when the previous form tells where he died?

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Marina,

The first one is a form for the C.O. of the Field Ambulance to fill in to notify the War Office of an Officers Death. The second one is the one sent to Caroline.

Andy

[marina]

Marina,

The first one is a form for the C.O. of the Field Ambulance to fill in to notify the War Office of an Officers Death. The second one is the one sent to Caroline.

Andy

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ah, I see. Thanks!

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Official Notification of the place of Robert's burial

[marina]

Better than an unknown resting place, I supoose, but these letters must have been so painful to receive.

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Marina,

The reason for posting the last piece was that his body was exhumed and reburied in another cemetery in 1919. I think this must have been painful for C.H.

[marina]

Chilling. But it may in a way have been a comfort to know that care was being taken to keep careful track of interments, that the men were considered important enough to be properly recorded and their families informed. I hope it was some comfort. Do you know why they had to be moved?

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Hi Marina,

Actually I have no idea as to why the bodies from the original cemetery were moved. It was a question I have been meaning to ask Terry.

With regard to the paperwork etc, their is quite a paper trail with regards to Robert with backdated pay to be dealt with, mainly done by Cox & Co (agents) and his Life Assurance (Atlas Assurance Co) requiring death certificate etc.

Andy

[marina]

Everyhting is paperwork, isn't it? How hard for her - as if it wasn't bad enough losing a man who was such a treasure.

marina

[stiletto_33853]

One thing I forgot to add to this was Caroline's Introduction, a little of which I put on a posting long ago.

"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 hesitantly.

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; 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 incredible to me how he survived those two awful winters in the trenches. And it must be remembered that he was over fourty, doing 2nd Lieutenant's work with boys mostly half his age.

The spelling of the letters also made me rather doubtful. It was a trick of his to mis-spell certain words in writing or mis-pronounce them in talking. They are all of them family words, generally without 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 that they will not strike anyone 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 kept that promise, and I think it was a help to him to feel that he could say things just as they ocurred 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 enough of it.

A short sketch of his life up to 1914 may be of interest to some people.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

Robert Ernest Vernede was born in London, June 4th, 1875. He went to St. Pauls School, won the Milton prize in 1893, for an original English poem, and a classical exhibition at St. Johns 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 re-published by Nelson's in their 7d. edition, and, under the title od The Flight of Mr. Faviel, in America.

It was followed by Meriel of the Moors, (1906); The Judgement 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 Bystander. But his two books on travel, An Ignorant in India and The Fair Dominion, both published in 1911, and some short stories for Harpers Magazine and Blackwoods Magazine, were, I think, what he most enjoyed writing, and peotry he always loved to write.

His first War Poem, England to the Sea, appeared in the Times of August 7, 1914. He wrote several more in the next few weeks, and after 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 1, 1916. It was published in the Observer of December 17, 1916. Two oither poems mentioned in his letters were, The Sergeant, published in the Daily Chronicle of 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 Wood, and A Listening Post, they are included in the collection of his poems recently published by Messrs. Meinemann.

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 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.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

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 enthusisstic gardener. He was also a keen 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 during 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 warmer 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 Blackwoods Magazine, and later published the book already mentioned, An Ignorant in India. He was much gratified by the appreciation of this book by Anglo-Indians. Only about two years ago his brothers 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 newcomer read it.

Andy

[marina]

Thanks, Andy. You can feel her pride in him even though she is so restrained in her approach. I had no idea he had publlished so many things. And it gave me the shivers to hear how he had always suffered from the cold. No wonder he mentions his efforts to keep warm so often in his letters.

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Marina,

Thats one of the reasons for posting this, that and the spelling in his letters.

Andy

[marina]

I guessed the spelling was a 'fun' thing between them - some of them are repeated. Did you ever fond out if Casroline remarried?

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

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 seperated during the whole of our married life until the war began, except for a fortnights 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 the 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 4th, 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 determined to join, but he would not mis-state his age as 39, but they wrote it down as 35 and accepted him.

The Brigade - 4000 strong - assembled in Hyde Park on September 18. They marched to Victoria Station and went down to Epsom by train. 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, 1915, 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. Slater - 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.

Andy

[salesie]

As I've said before, in my opinion the man's a lost great and his story deserves to be told. Hopefully, by this time next year Andy and I will have done him justice.

We've already seen A Listening Post (my favourite), here's the other poem he wrote shortly before his death.

At Delville

At Delville I lost three Sergeants-

And never within my ken

Had one of them taken thought for his life

Or cover for aught but his men.

Not for two years of fighting

Through that devilish strain and noise;

Yet one of them called out as he died-

"I've been so ambitious boys" ...

And I thought to myself, "Ambitious!"

Did he mean that he longed for power?

But I knew that he'd never thought of himself

Save in his dying hour.

And one left a note for his mother,

Saying he gladly died

For England, and wished no better thing ..

How she must weep with pride.

And one with never a word fell,

Talking's the one thing he'd shirk,

But I never knew him other than keen

For things like danger and work.

Those Sergeants I lost at Delville

On a night that was cruel and black,

They gave their lives for England's sake,

They will never come back.

What of the hundreds in whose hearts

Thoughts no less splendid burn? ...

I wonder what England will do for them

If ever they return?

Robert Ernest Vernede 1917.

[stiletto_33853]

He had already had one disappointment on getting his commission. A close friend of Epsom days, E.J. Vaughan, who had applied fpr a commission at the same time and for the same Regiment, had not been gazetted to The Rifle Brigade, but to The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

Robert was gazetted to the 5th Battalion The Rifle Brigade on May 14th, 1915 (the 13th 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 18th, 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 came 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 9th 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 in 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 chargeof 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 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 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 a long time ago, but joined us just after promotions had been made.

His grave is in the French Cemetery of Lechelle, and yesterday we put up a new cross, and put stones around the grave and planted out a large bowl of Daffodil bilbs which we had flowering in the mess when we were here together some days ago."

[stiletto_33853]

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 characterised 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 walking tour between the Rhine and the Moselle, we arrived at a small village one day andstopped 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 eplained, 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 to young; when he reached the correct age, he was so utterly amazed that he apparently believed it not to be true. I think he felt we should never have invented anything so incredible.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

While we were in Sheppey one of the subalterns having just found out my husbands 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 Sublaterns 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 alker with people who interested him . His second Captain in the Battalion inwriting to me said, "We so often in C Coy. were given, usually most unexpectedly, some extraordinarily sound and what must have been well thought out ideas with reference to tactical or disciplinary or other Army matters." "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.

Andy