Robert Ernest Vernede - Novelist/Poet

[stiletto_33853]

9th March, 1916. Rest Camp

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 the next few days - making dug-outs in support.

Should be very safe. No time to write to-day.

Andy

[marina]

Kola Nut is also known as Cola Nut and Cola. Kola Nut is the seed kernel of a large African tree grown commercially around the world. It is extremely popular in the tropics as a caffeine-containing stimulant. The properties of Kola are the same as caffeine, modified only by the astringents present.

Official Latin Name: Cola acuminata

Annie 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks, Annie - I had visions of a sort of cherry ade drink and I KNEW that couldn't be right!

Marina

[marina]

1st March,1916.

II 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.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ah, if only he had known about the GWF and how people would log on just to read his letters!

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

10th March,1916.

Istarted 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 middles of Plashes Wood, with flares going up and guns crackilng 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 fpret. 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 drippling around us 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 6a.m. to 8a.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 sleeoing 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 servents 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 11th. 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 foortnight, so I shall have a dug-out and two platoons to myself and shall dig with them. I did some this morning abd felt warmer at the end of it. The snow is melting fast. Am just sending off a 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.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

Battalion Record for this period in time states that:-

On the 15th we moved to rest billets at Poperinghe where the Battalion was personally congratulated by the G.O.C. and B.G.C. on its conduct. The weather was very wintry at this time, there being some six inches of snow on the ground and on 7th March, an impromptu snowball fight took place between us and the 1st Bn. Royal Fusiliers, in which practically the whole two Battalions took part.

On 9th March we moved up to trenches again in Sanctuary Wood with two companies in support in Maple Copse.

Andy

[marina]

Snowball fights! Bet that warmed them up! I am constantly amazed at how they kept thier spirits up and managed to have a little fun.

marina

[stiletto_33853]

12th March

It is the 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 Boche 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; and it is a pretty sight, their aeroplanes like silver moths dodging between the white puffs of shell smoke in the 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. Everywhere there is evidence of Tommy's thriftlessness - sacks of meat stuffed into some corner to rot. If they could teach 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 (starting at 5a.m.), I played bridge with D Coy. till 11p.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, stretcher bearers and the wounded, who are brought down to the dressing station next to 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 show' 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. Morever, 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.

Andy

[liverpool annie]

You wicked thing, reading my letters to strangers.

Wow! - if only he knew!!

but I think he would have been proud to know you Andy! - and would have been happy to know

that you thought enough about him to share your knowledge with others ..... !

It's been a treat for me - that's for sure!

Annie

[stiletto_33853]

Annie,

As you so rightly say "If only he knew"

Thank you for the last bit, I would have been honoured to have known Robert. As I have said before, when I went to visit Caroline and Robert's house I got the eerie vision of Robert smoking his pipe in the garden waving as if to say Welcome, come on in and join my little debating circle.

Robert and his work are close to my heart, and, I am so glad that this thread has brought knowledge of him and his work to the attention of a new generation. Through my research and reading of Robert's work it has thoroughly enlightened me and brought me in contact with some of his relatives who have filled in a lot of the holes in my knowledge and understanding of the man himself.

By consulting the Battalion records and mixing them with his letters it has enabled me to tie in the events in his letters together and has given a new dimension to all that he writes about.

But I digress, more to come, and, thank you and the other members of the forum who have contacted me re Robert and asking that his letters be finished from the very beginning.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

After a short break back to Robert's letters.

13th March, 1916.

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 11p.m., after which ____ and _____ came and sat by my fire till 12.30 or so. They insisted on knowing my age, and guessed 32 or so, so I must be ageing visibly, but the truth agitated them, as something pertaining to their grandfathers. Both nice lads, desprately 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 xervant 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.

Oue expert builders - pioneers as they are called - are rather aftermy own style of carpentry, and would craze Lindsay. They never saw two pieces of wood to fit, and ifthey want to measure anything, they'll tie a piece of stick and a piece of string together to measure it. 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 also absolutely snubbed by Cpl. ____ this morning, who said, "What we looks to is protection from fire." I meekly said, "If you can get comfort too, why not?" but he only sniffed.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

16th March, 1916.

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 there, Sir." The man had got it in the eye and head, but I belive 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, are like C., absolutely scorn strays, but I think that's the mistakle of being too valiant. Cpl. _____ is more or less ahead of the dug-out party. They are babies. He's supposed to be a foreman, and works on one dug-out while another Cpl. has another party doinganother. He will not explain what he wants done to the others till they've put up a lot of the 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 ti invent out own as we go, and there are at least fifty useless ones in the wood that wouldn't stop a pea-shooter.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

18th March, 1916.

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.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

Sunday, March 19th, 1916.

The gum-boots arrived in the middle of last night, and are excessively nice and useful, as the damp remains in spite of the balmy, pleasant weather. I am still in the 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 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 yards away and been whizz banged, some wounded. Some of the men are hopelessly careless.

The enclosed two letters from Marchetti and Knowles respectively are rather sad, aren't they? He was a very nice youth, and I always thought it particularly sporting og 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 thing 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. I'm rather glad to know an authority on Navy matters likes "England to the Sea".

I got two letters from you in the middle of the night as I came 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'be 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 keepng it for. Taken from the bottom of a bag by someone. A sad loss, but luckily the weather is now such that one isn't likely to thinkof 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.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

The Marchetti referred to in Robert's letter was 2nd Lieut. A. Marchetti, killed in action on 15th March 1916.

Andy

[marina]

He is a tiny bit vain about his youthful looks - he mentions them more than once in the letters. Makes him more touchingly appealing somehow. Or perhaps he is only self conscious about being older than the others.

The Pioneers who are building the dodgy dugouts sound like the plumber who installed my bathroom... Nothing changes!

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

The RNCO Anthologist Robert mentions is Mr. Geoffrey Chandler, who wrote asking to be allowed to include "England to the Sea" in an anthology he was editing for the Royal Naval College, Osboorne. (Realms of Melody, pub. Macmillan and Co)

Andy

[liverpool annie]

These N.C.O.s, are like C., absolutely scorn strays, but I think that's the mistakle of being too valiant. Cpl. _____ is more or less ahead of the dug-out party. They are babies. He's supposed to be a foreman, and works on one dug-out while another Cpl. has another party doinganother. He will not explain what he wants done to the others till they've put up a lot of the 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 ti invent out own as we go, and there are at least fifty useless ones in the wood that wouldn't stop a pea-shooter.

It makes me smile to think that Robert maybe a little intimidated by the NCO's

I've noticed he's been siding with the men a bit more ........ !

I've also been going into flights of fancy - thinking that Sgt C is my Granddad - and it makes me glad to hear Robert say that although he's a pain - he's a good man! silly isn't it? ............?

Glad you're back Andy - I missed the letters!!

Annie

[stiletto_33853]

21st March, 1916.

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 abouut 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 blue deals severly with them. Now and again one pops out to see how near the shells are bursting - an aid to the digestion!! A blackbird 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.

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 acknowledgement that the less conventional folk are not fools or criminals.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

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, I've written to Frdk., Oscar, and Arthur, and now I'm beggining 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 3a.m., I guess, and was up at 2a.m., and also at 5-6a.m. 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 seperately 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.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

(To F.G.S.) 21st March, 1916.

A Wood in Flanders. Subaltern visible in dug-out.

I write with shells going past from either side, we being safely outof 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 intelligent and cheerful, and to die for a country you admire, though not your own, seems extra gallantry.

I think some arm-chair criticism by somebody 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 ascertainable 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. Anyway, I'd best come to an end for the present. Do hurry up and get well, Fred.

Andy

[stiletto_33853]

22nd March, 1916.

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.

Andy

[liverpool annie]

22nd March, 1916.

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.

Andy

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm sitting here with a lump in my throat - wondering what he's really feeling while he's writing -

and the shells going past from either side .... !

my stomach is tied up in knots and I'm only reading it!

Annie

[stiletto_33853]

24th March, 1916. Rest Village.

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.

Andy

[marina]

My computer's been down for a couple of days and I have returned to a BUDGET of letters! Almost worth being offline for!

He makes me laugh with his appreciation of gumboots. He should have written a gumboots poem.

I cannot believe that it would be possible to get used to all that sleeplessness, and yet he must have or he couldn't keep going. Am trying to imagine feeling safe in the middle of a wood with shells flying from both sides. The idea defeats me.

Annie - I know what you mean about the lump in the throat - he gets to you!

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

March 25 or 26, 1916.

I sent you off a scrap yesterday, and I 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.

Andy