Two Men - One Memorial

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To His Sister.

1st R.B. - Trenches.

Sunday, April 9, 1916.

After writing to you yesterday, I started out on a nice pony and a beautiful evening, and reached Battalion H.Q. dug-outs at 7.30, and was then guided on my first walk to the trenches - a very thrilling walk down a long and deep communication trench under a roof of brilliant stars. In ten minutes I reached the Company H.Q. dug-out, where I had a cheerful reception from the other officers, who were conveniently at dinner.

To-day has been another lovely day - larks singing and magpies lolloping about over the lines.

The trenches are nothing like I expected. Shells etc. flying over us at all angles, on our own and the Germans.

A wonderful dawn and sunrise this morning. Could you send me some mustard and cress seeds, and any other seeds (flowers or a vegetable due to grow quickly) which you might think suitable? Very little; just enough to make a joke with in the communication trench.

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To A.E. Kitchin.

1st R.B. - Trenches.

April 10, 1916.

I am now sitting in gorgeous sunshine after lunch outside Company H.Q. dug-out, smoking a cigar. The weather is beautiful, there is lots to see, not very much shelling so far, and I am in the midst of a lot of very new and interesting experiences. I am enjoying life very much (as I write now, one of our aeroplanes is right overhead, pursued by little white balls of shrapnel - a wonderful sight in a blue sky like today's). Yesterday we were shelled with about six rounds by a howitzer, two of which fell near H.Q. dug-out and filled up the trench for a time. I was quite frightened by them, as one could hear them coming for some time ahead.

I do wish I could express my whole psychological attitude to all this - some day I will try. At present I feel it's beyond the powers of pschology and literature - the apparent harmlessness of all this banging and whizzing in such fine weather, making the whole thing seem like a game which one has been prevailed upon to play out of mere compliance with the established order of things: the growing familarity with the various frequent noises, like the two German machine guns which join in like geese raising an alarm, when an aeroplane is flying low; the different batteries, and all the sounds to which one assumes a kind of personal attitude and well understands why the armies have given them names like 'Archibald', etc.

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TO His Sister.

1st R.B. - Trenches.

April 13, 1916.

It is such a strange sensation, waking up after two hours sleep, during which one has forgotten all about the snapping of rifles and flares and chattering of machine guns, to find that one is at the Front, and to stagger chill and sleepy out of one's dug-out into the middle of it again. Then it is so strange, also, that after stand-to-arms an hour before daylight, we breakfast at daylight (5.30 or 6.0), and go to bed afterwards. Waking up before lunch is so odd. One has quite forgotten whichmeal one had last. I was called the other day with the words: 'Lunch is ready, Sir.'

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To His Sister.

1st R.B. - B.E.F.

Sunday, April 16.

This is after lunch in the sun and the orchard at the back of our billets. We had a good Church Parade this morning. Our Chaplain is certainly a fine man. Afterwards, with two nice fellows who are officers in my Company, I walked to _______, and picked cowslips and oxlips in the orchards there. The weather is beautiful today - lately it has been very April, snow and hail showers and a cold wind, with moments of brightness. We go back to trenches again tomorrow.

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To E.H.L. Southwell.

1st R.B. - B.E.F.

April 18, 1916.

I suppose you have your copy of 'V.b'? I have two copies out here, owing to a mistaken order to a bookseller. I have given it quite a vulgar puff among booksellers, and I am supposing that it occupies a large position in a Trinity Street Book Shop window at Cambridge. Have you got a Press-cutting agency to send you all notices and reviews of it? ('The Practical Man' - yes; but you ought to, really, oughtn't you?) Any one will find you a newspaper-cutting agency. I want the names of the authors of 'The Weather has thrown of it's weeds' - it's very good that, alost as French as the original and 'The Fairy's Story', please.

I came up to the trenches ten days ago, alone. We've had a few days in billets, and we go up again tonight. I expect I shall discover the real nature of War before long.

Do you know, Man, I have a kind of loyalty to the New House, through all this, which I believe could have become positively offensive, if provoked.

With regard to the Press-cutting agency, I intended to remark that 'London must be full of them by all accounts; you have only got to walk along the street till you see a red lamp', or something like it

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To J.M. West.

1st R.B. - Trenches.

April 22, 1916.

I'm afraid this isn't really a 'Shell' letter, because so far I haven't had one nearer than 70 yards. However, before I give you any news, I will describe the various shells and my attitude to them:-

(1) The 'Whizz-bang'; which comes from a field gun, close up to the enemy's front line, and is generally shrapnel. This bursts almost before you know it is coming, so that there is no time to fell frightened, and one says, 'Hallo (hello, halloah, halo, etc.[there are various ways of spelling this]), that was a shell'.

(2) Our own; which one hears whistling through the air all the way, from the report of the gun to the explosion near the enemy's line. One knows roughly where they are, and there is nothing to excite more than a mild interest.

(3) The enemy's big gun and howitzer shells. These, especially the latter, can be heard whistling for some time, and one can tell if they are coming in one's direction or not. These have affected me unpleasantly; a series of them came over, and one hit our trench one day. It was not very alarming, because I was in bed in my dug-out at the time. Still, I did just feel as I heard them coming that it might be serious, and felt like saying, 'For goodness' sake burst, and tell me where you are'.

Now that, I imagine, is the real shell feeling, which is accentuated in the case of a real bombardment, which I have not experienced.

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To J.O. Whitfield.

1st R.B.

April 25, 1916.

The average letter expressing sympathy is always kind, but often so conventional. I, who have written such, know that only too well. Yours was one of those which I have read and re-read. Your views on death, I am sure, are the right ones, whatever the difficulty in fitting them in with the apparent importance of life. 'An incident in the life of the soul' - that is very good, and really enables one to combine the importance of life with the comparitive un-importance of death. I dare say you feel the importance of life much less than I do. I often wish that I regarded it as nothing. It would make it so much easier to face death. Still your phrase, 'Incident in the life of the soul', allows one to keep a philosophy which values life and laughs at death with equal sincerity.

So far, the horrors of war for me have been chiefly the wetness, coldness, and mud of the trenches. The Bosches are over 1000 yards away from the 800 yards of front held by our Company, and the shelling has not been very serious, and amid much beastly weather there have been sunny days, when the singing of many larks, and the whistling of shells and cracking of rifles and chattering of machine guns, have seemed, all of them, to be elements in a game which might become dangerous, if allowed to go too far.

I do not suppose things will always be as mild as that. And indeed, from a personal point of view, I hope they won't. I want to go through the worst of it, though I don't look forward to it, and am still in great doubt as to what I shall be like.

Meanwhile I am enjoying this life much more than I expected.

I have news of the Man, from a good Captain of his Battalion, who had sojourned with the 9th Battalion for some weeks. He says the Man is always doing everybody's work, if not watched.

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To His Sister.

1st R.B.

Tuesday, April 25, 1916.

Do you happen to know if any one has ordered the fortnightly Literary Supplement of The Times to be sent to me? It would be nice to see.

We came out of the trenches un Sunday night and we are living a sort of semi-trench life in support (i.e. the second line of defence). Our Mess is in a room with a large fire-place and one arm chair. The foor subalterns, we occupy a dug-out constructed out of the remains of a ruined house; most snug, and the beds are grand. I am writing this im shirt sleeves outside the dug-out. My platoon are billeted in the cellars of the ruined Gendarmerie. In fact, this village is pretty well knocked about; but nothing can spoil the beauty and exhileration of this Spring day. Just a touch of delicate grey on the trees, and swallows gliding in and out of the ruins. I wonder what they thought of their village the first time they returned since the War.

I've had another letter from Mary Swan, and a book (Carry On) which she kindly sent me. Also, a most amusing letter from R.A. Knox, with a game of L'attaque on paper, which he calls 'Our L'attaque Corner' - 'Huns to play and win in eight moves, a la weekly papers'.

[marina]

How he longs to be in the thick - wonder if it's a case of getting it over with and he's fed up waiting for that. Liked 'L'AttaqueCorner' ! The laconic sense of humour is growing on me.

Marina

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Must admit the humour and irony grows on you.

Andy

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To C.R.N. Routh.

1st R.B. - B.E.F.

April 26, 1916.

At present my Company is in close support; sort of combined billets and dug-outs made out of the ruins of a village, which must have been dear to its inhabitants when they lived here, and still dear to its swallows who have just returned.

'Le temps a laisse son manteau,' and life is really grand.

You will find, probably, as I did, that the noises and circumstances of this trench life will appeal to the imagination very strongly. But, of course, that cannot last. Still, I still take pleasure in an aeroplane in a clear sky, haloed by white compact balls of shrapnel smoke.

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To E.H.L. Southwell.

1st R.B.

April 26, 1916.

Man,

Le temps a laisee son manteau.

Much love from

A Man.

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To R.F. Bailey.

1st R.B.

In second line - close support.

April 27, 1916.

I have so far seen little of the horrors of war; and I am divided between extreme satisfaction with this really happy existence, and a desire to go through something really bad before long, for the same psychological reasons that make us all want to fight, and that make it so hard for you to stay at home.

It is very good of you to say 'Do I want anything to read?'__Now I should like to read E.F. Benson's school story, if you would care to send me your copy when you have finished with it.

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To H.E.E. Howson.

1st R.B. - B.E.F.

April 28, 1916.

There are good men here,, which means 'amenable to turns', though I am afraid there is a limit to one's liberty to be futile.

You want to know what they say, 'Shekespeare out-tops knowledge'. Well, he does, doesn't he? I thought that was understood. (At this point the Man would say, 'Oh! not a good man'.)

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To R.A. Knox.

1st Rifle Brigade.

May 1, 1916.

It's all right about the Man. At least, I hope it is. For Barclay has returned to his Battalion, leaving the Man his Company, and bringing with him certain observations on the Man which proved his identity (never say 'identity' in the Army any more than you would say 'ignominy'. In fact, it is possible [mind, I don't say it often happens], possible for a man to be discharged with igomy for losing his identity disc.) {Or is it.? I never know.}

That'll puzzle you a bit.

The hun is being rather worriting this afternoon, and as I feel secure, more or less, in this large and rich dug-out, I also feel that I ought to go out and expose myself a little more, just to show I'm not afraid, which I am.

I am sorry about those peas. Of course I remembered it on the train, on my return that day. Still it is not too late now, is it? I was thinking of having a little garden all my own, outside my dug-out, and have ordered some mustard and cress to start with, from home.

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To His Brother-In-Law, L.J. Reid.

B.E.F.

Tuesday, May 9, 1916.

It has poured all-day. We were to have done a Company march, which I had been interested in myself about. But it didn't come off. I have a very excellent billet here, at the house of a dressmaker, who is always sewing and has lay figures standing mutely in various parts of the room. (Why are they called 'lay figures'?) It is more than usually tidy, and though my bed is at an angle of 45 degrees, I am very comfortable here. The lady was very busy on Sunday, with pins in her mouth and a puckered brow, getting her little girl ready for her first Communion.

I've just had a ride in the rain. Last evening I gave a lecture to my N.C.O.'s in the village school, where I met the schoolmaster (a war substitute), and I told him I was also 'maitre d'ecole', and we had a little chat about Teaching and the Allies. (That's a lie: but see the Times Educational Supplement Weekly) The School is a single room, decorated with maps, and pictures called 'La Morale par Illustration', in which the various virtues are depicted. A landowner shaking hands with a farmer is 'Cordialite dans les rapports'. A man carrying a child from a burning building is 'Devouement'. Altogether, it is a most model school, and the key is kept at the Cafe over the way.

We have a very good room for Company Mess this time; and there is a nice farm-yard, with a large dung-heap on which cocks crow, and a donkey, and a dog-kennel, and in it sometimes a dog and sometimes a child and sometimes both. Beyond the yard is a beautiful orchard.

To-morrow we do a Company march, and I shall have with me the Company, two officers, and a machine gun on a cart, and my own pony - e regular army all to myself.

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To C.A. Alington.

B.E.F.

May 9, 1916.

I was awfully glad to get your letter from the Chantry, when we were in the trenches lately. Thank you very much. We are at present right out of the line again, billeted in a charming village, with innumerable farm-yards, dung-heaps, and cocks that crow on them, orchards almost at their best, lilacs, a Mare in a straw hat, and a school, where yesterday I gave my N.C.O.'s a lecture on Advanced Guards and covered myself with chalk at the blackboard and felt sorrowfully reminiscent.

One does appreciate the O.T.C. here, and I don't know what part of its work I could do without. Incidentally, too, I find it is important to be able to ride a horse without falling off or getting up the wrong side.

I suppose the Summer term has started, and that cover-points are shivering amid a wealth of dripping but gorgeously green trees. May is a good month after all. It is lovely here.

A shell fell within twenty yards of me the other day. I tell everybody this, as I'm rather proud of it.

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To His Sister.

B.E.F.

Sunday, May 14, 1916.

Yesterday we had a very good Church Parade, which I liked very much, with the Divisional Band playing. In the afternoon, regimental sports - with a lot of side-shows like Aunt Sallies etc., and Riflemen got up as showman, one of them even in complete evening-dress suit with a top-hat. In the evening we had a concert in a barn, with the Divisional Band playing again. I played Humoreske and Perpetuo Mobile on a very poor fiddle which the Quartermaster-Sergeant of 'A' Company carries about with him.

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To His Sister.

B.E.F.

Friday, May 19, 1916. 11 p.m.

Here are nightingales, corncakes, hawthorn, beautiful weather, and everything rather English, except that the fields are hedgeless and, as Southwell writes, 'inviting manoeuvre'.

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To His Sister.

Sunday, May 21, 1916.

When we got here this morning, the owner of our Mess billet was ready for us with a marble chimney slab, which she says we broke last week, when we were here. I should think she did it with a sledge hammer myself. After a long shrieking arguement with her, she getting ten words to my one, I said I would make myself acquainted with some of the elementary facts of the case. She said that it was a matter of 100 francs. Je ne pense pas.

Madame: 'Vous etes justement sortis du village, quand je suis entre dans le garage pour voir s'il y avait du feu ou de telle chose, et - ah! mon Dieu, viola mon marbe casse en trois morceaux.'

M.G.W.: 'Mais, madame, vous m'avez dit cela trois fois,' etc.

It is awfully hot now. I think we shall be back in the line again in the next few days.

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To R.A. Knox.

1st R.B.

May 21, 1916.

I am feeling rather incapable of writing a decnt letter to any one. Life has been very depressing lately, as I've been very incompetent as O.C. Company, and when that happens, the authorities make it their business to make one feel like the boy who goes about perpetually saying, 'What shall we say, if he asks us, Where we've been, What we've been doing, etc.?'

All this, too, in the middle of very hard work and very beautiful country. 'Nor is the sicklewort absent, the green-leaved endive.'

By the way, nightingales - are they really good?

Well (as 'the Men' always say in their letters), please tell those Men I am about to write again very soon, and please write again, and please give my love to all my friends in your form.

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To Mrs. Howson.

1st Bn. the Rifle Brigade - B.E.F.

May 27, 1916.

I have been very busy lately, in temporary command of my Company, and always shadowed by the knowledge that, if I did a thing well, it would always be taken for granted, and if I did anything wrong, or if anybody in my Comapny did anything wrong (which is the same thing), I should most certainly be blamed. All this, at a time when this country has been almost as beautiful as England, gave me much sympathy with the Scout in Punch, who was sent out to find the enemy, and returned breathless, saying 'The lilacs are out'. As indeed they are.

I never know what to think about democracy, except that it seem to me the most ideal kind of government, and the only justifiable one. It is the only system which does ultimately and theoretically leed to freedom. I always feel that it is system which has never gone right yet, but which is a duty to make to go right. It produces bad results, but it has got to be made to produce good results, simply because in the world of idea, and not in the world of fact, it is the right system. I do agree with you most heartily as to the hopelessness of democracy without education. But I don't think we can help that, except by putting forward the minute-hand of education. And, by the way, it is comforting to remember that, with most clocks, the minute hand also works the hour-hand. At present we seem to be letting Education suffer by the War equally with other things. The sayiong that 'We don't care about Education in England' seems to be quite true.

But all this does not prove the badness of democracy as an ideal; it only proves its impracticability. And I think the answer to that is we must make democracy 'work' because it is the right ideal. If democracy without education is hopeless, then we must educate, not give up democracy. There is no ideal in the world that has 'worked' yet. Christianity is still only an ideal, because we don't believe in it enough to make it a fact. Justice and honesty don't really 'pay', because there are not enough people who practise them. There is very little idealism in the world so far. So far, the only thing which really produces idealism is, unfortunately, war, and the thing called patriotism. When a war breaks out, thousands of leisured young men, who have hitherto thought of little but of how to enjoy themselves, who have hitherto turned their backs on all that was unpleasant and all that provoked thought, suddenly discover that, though it was not 'up to them' to live for their country in peace time, yet it is absolutley their duty to die for it in war time, and fling away their lives with heroism. It is, apparently, easier to fight for one's country than to devote one's leisure to social problems. That is to me the most amazing thing.

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So far, with all our civilisation, we have not yet discovered any other way of expressing our idealism than by war. Even the peots, who ought to know better, haven't got much further. Wordsworth says: 'How ennobling thoughts depart, when men change swords for ledgers'; and Rupert Brooke, in his 1914 sonnets, seemed to welcome the War as a release from materialism. The arts are inspired by war, and in the pulpit it is able to be reconciled with Chritianity, because of the great unselfish, nonutilitarian virtues which it produces. But then the world is really democratic, perhaps peace will inspire us in the same way.

What a terrible lecture this si that I am delivering. I hope you will forgive it. I always think that, when a soldier talks polotics, it is a very terrible thing. And when the soldier is also a schoolmaster! But this is my share in the very interesting conversation you started; and my interest in the subject must be my apology.

We are not actually in the trenches at present, but we make frequent tedious visits to them to work by day and night, and return to a village and listen to the guns from a respectful distance. It is not so lovely a place as some that I have lately seen, and the inhabitants rather hate us. In fact, the lady of this house wanted to turn us away the first night we arrived, very late after a long march. The good woman still brings us absurd little complaints daily, and my servant, generally the culprit, satnds gravely to attention in the doorway, while she delivers them. All of which pleases me hugely, because it reminds me that the English are not the only selfish people.

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Phew!, Now thats a letter to provoke some thought.

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To His Sister.

1st R.B.

Tuesday, May 30, 1916.

To-morrow evening I am giving a champagne dinner in honour of the anniversary of my joining the Regiment. Russell-Smith is coming. The only thing is that we are almost certain to have night work to do. So it will have to be a public luncheon. Public lunches are always to somebody; so it will have to be to me, as well as my being host. We shall have mayonnaise, and I shall make a speech about the Empire afterwards. At least, that's what ought to happen. Only, we are more exercised at present about getting some glasses to drink champagne out of; and a table cloth.

This billet is of the back-kitchen variety, but we are very comfortable. Oh! did I tell you how, when we arrived late at night, and after some wandering found the billet, we found a very stout and shrieking woman throwing our servants and their packs and rifles out of the door; and how it appeared that the servants had taken possession in rather a noisy fashion, 'deposant leurs sacs et fusils' on the floor and executing a song and dance woke up the man of the house, who, in shirt and pants, came in and shouted 'Sotez; sortez', and then proceeded to give a lovely imitation of the song and dance of the servants - to show how angry he was? And we all sat down in corners and on the bed and table, and laughed wearily.

Finally, hearing that there was to be money for this, the host withdrew, but the woman still shrieks and comes to me with complaints against my servant, whom she calls 'celui-la'. Celui-la stands gravely to attention the while in the doorway, and I simply expire with laughter.