Robert Ernest Vernede - Novelist/Poet

[liverpool annie]

Christmas dinner- another surreal time.  Hope he got his piano and the crockery!

Marina

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Can I ask a question?

Andy - are you missing out the lovey dovey bits - or did Caroline edit the letters herself?

Seems to me that these letters are definitely for his own mental health - if he keeps talking about everyday things that he's doing - and not thinking about what he could be doing - he'll get through! - he's not giving himself a chance to remember what went before! the comfort and security etc. The times he seems to choke - is when he says he's received her letters - though he makes a quick recovery!! How fortunate he is - that she is the kind of woman she is - that he can say everything he's saying without restraint - he knows she understands ( in spite of her worry!) - how wonderful to have a relationship like that! -

Just a thought! sorry - didn't mean to interupt!

Annie

[stiletto_33853]

Annie,

Not an interuption at all. The letters are as They appear down to the punctuation marks, Caroline sent copies of his letters to close friends and family as they arrived from Robert. To quote Caroline:- "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."

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

24th December, 1915.

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 lanterns, 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 today 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 some Colonel - I believe his name was H. if so, he was a youth Frdk. and I wre 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 become in command of C Coy. instead of second in command, etc., etc. This all sounds very military, doesn't it ? and other people are most 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 be commanded - so perhaps I had better aim at being a Brigadier, say.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

Boxing Day, 1915.

After three days of no letters I got five from you on Christmas Day - about 6pm - and one from my mother, and one from yours.

I hope you saw V.__ 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 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 football match at 12 - won by 11 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 the late hour. Our own dinner didn't arrive till 4pm, after much strafing of the servanta. At 7 the C Coy. officers had to go round to the sergeants 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 11pm the farmeress came and besought me to turn 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 Christmas 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 definetely when we move. I will write as soon as I can again.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

28th December, 1915.

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 easy to be an O.C as a Rifleman.

Now T. has returned from leave and I revert to 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.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

29th December, 1915.

Just a line afore I go to bed - to tell you that we don't seem to be moving for some days. Inspection by the G.O.C. to-morrow.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

31st December, 1915.

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 the 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 fortcoming.

Andy

[marina]

Bumper stack of letters today - beginning to know how he feels when he got all his letters from Caroline at one time! Odd to think of them all hanging Chinese lanterns in the barn, but nice.

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Still the Village, 3rd January, 1916.

I came back from a long route march through much mud, followed y 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 tenches - frightfully heavy but supposed to be good against shrapnel.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

6th January, 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 6am this morning, having started at 7pm the night before. It's not the trenches yet, but may be when you get this.

The start from the rest billet was rather picturesque. A dark starry night, the Btt. in fours on the muddy road, singing and shouting goodbyes to the villagers, captains on horses, and pack animals jogging behind the endless French avenues. We entrained about seven miles away - sat rather thick in a beetje 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 trucks on the floor, which I fancy was quite as comfortable as the seats we were on. Then dismounted 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. Noy 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 11am, 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 sahll 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 our 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.

I was going into the nearest town for the afternoon 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 beggining to arrive.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

Dans Les Tranches. 9th January, 1916.

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 I., 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 with 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 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 casualties 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 barricaeds 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 inextricably mixed, clothes and tins and dug-outs and every mortal thing you can imagine. Otherwise they are roomier than anything at Sheppey. Since arriving I've seen almost all the things one reads of - aeroplanes being shelled in every direction, 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 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 characteristicly, I suppose. Having retired to baed at 2a.m. in a sort of little dug-out, 2ft. 6 high - room for one with one's legs sticking out a trifle - I was hauled out at 5a.m. because the wind had changed and a gas attack was possible. We stood about in gusts of rain till 7a.m. when I again retired to bed and was awakened 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 10a.m. - 2p.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 sometime, 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 yards 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 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 nud 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 I expected, though there are faint sickly smells and things that take some getting usedto. 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 particular. 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 9 x 3 mess room dug-out; and there you see either five servants snoring or the chef sitting over a brazier taking things out of his pockets and dropping them into the saucepan 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 desperatley sleepy to hold a pencil. Explain this to my mother.

I think I'll try and get a mug of water to wash in and shave now.

Andy

[marina]

Imagine having to share boots with the preceding battalion. Silly thing to be horrified by in the circs they were in, but really...

This last was a really good letter - vintage Robert!

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Quite a thought eh Marina.

10th January, 1916.

Just a line to say that I'm safe and well. Also I had six hours slepp 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'vebeen watching German working parties in the distance, and an unknown piece of railway. There must have been something on early to-day, for about 7a.m. a terrific row on our flank waked me and I believe went on for an hour, nut I was too sleppy to take any interest in it. It's a beautiful day. More sleep - so I must come to an end. My chief hours are 9.30p.pm - 1.30a.m. - 1.30p.m.. The night part is rather long and dull, though one has some intereting talks.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

11th or 12th January, 1916.

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 slepp elsewhere. Having a fairly interesting time. Too sleppy for words.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

12th January, 1916.

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 they are, somewhere miles behind, and theu 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 - 1. a sound as of the loudest thunderclap you have ever heard going off in your ears; 2, a noise of the whole of Harrod's store 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 to 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.

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, thopugh 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 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 particularly difficult to live up to. I never did like the earliest dawn!!

Andy

[marina]

Just the thought of the shells, even though obviously I have never experienced them, fills me with horror. I admire those regular NCOs Robert speaks of who are so good at consoling the recruits - how on earth do you calm people in that situation? And Robert doesn't have time to think about himself - how like him.

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

12th January, 1916. (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 ti live in for the rest of his life - after seeing the trenches.

Truly, nobody need think the trenches (at any rate the worst ones) anything but disgusting; but there is a great deal of fascination in them, and the men are extraordinarily interesting and good homoured, and cook under fire; and they get on the whole a worse time than the officers in the ordinary way of accomodation. Our new ones have the advatage of the 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 flkares 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 Germen trenches or not. The landscape is exceedingly 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.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

13th January, 1916. Still the cellars

I am sitting in the mess room cellar, which is about 6 x 10ft. and holds the officers of two Coys. The space is sardiny and the cold icy. The difficulty 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 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 10p.m. I take a working party up to the trenches and return abut 1 or 2a.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.

14th Got back safe and sound at about midnight. 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.

Andy

[marina]

I've heard before about this cheerfulness of the men. Astonishing, isn't it? Sun and the men's cheeriness - I like that.

He really makes the trenches at night seem eerie - don't fancy the sound of that high cold wind at all!

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

17th January, 1916. Still the Rest Camp.

I seem to get your letters very regularly, if I don't get one per day, I get two the next.

The camp is rather dull and cool, but one gets plenty of sleep, which is a good thing.

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.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

20th January, 1916.

I 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 takes some time to read though), also writing crime sheets.

Our shed in which we live, 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 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 for 3p.m. - 12 midnight. We went miles and miles in artillery waggons - perfectly springless carts (holding twelve men) - which, when the horses gallop, reminded me of being on a elephant in pursuit of the leopard. Your spine 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 on 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. Nast misty moisty night it was.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

22nd January, 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 the post.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

22nd January, 1916. Rest Camp

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, thpough 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 chhek 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 onmibuses, 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 a lift 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, 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).

Andy

[marina]

In a smoky 'garden shed' writing his letters - a nice image. At least he doens't seem so cold!

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

25th January,1916.

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 inprove our discipline, when lots of real yells to be done. The men haven't all had a bath 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 Officerc' 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.

Its frosts by night and gets nice and bright about 10 o'clock. Much nicer than damp mug.

Andy