Two Men - One Memorial

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To H.E.E. Howson.

Sheerness.

November 15, 1915.

Yes, I will come soon, but not this week-end. Also I am quite ready to exclude Advent Sunday, the 27th, but I wish you hadn't mentioned the fact that it was Advent Sunday.

I thought of muddy roads, darkening chapel windows, the fire-side, and 'For behold, Darkness'. Man, I got strumming that lovely Bach Sonata last night, the one in which the piano starts steadily and expectantly:-

and the violin:-

You know. To-day I've found a pianist and we are going to play it to-night. Yes, there is a good deal to attract me to S. on Advent Sunday; good hymns too, probably, in Chapel. However, I'll come later, perhaps, if it suits you better. Anyhow I'm going to get up on Thursday and come for a Field Day. If I do come for the 27th, I should have to apply this Wednesday, anyhow. (I'm using the word 'anyhow' a lot)

I'm glad you've been to Rome (1) again, Man. That is good. I shall hover round the Jura when I come, I make no doubt.

Oh! look. A son of Prof. Sorley, who was at K.C. (2) Choir School under me, was killed recently in France; he had left Marlborough last summer, and seems to have developed into a remarkable person. I have got hold of three poems of his. I haven't time to write it all out, so on second thoughts I'll bring them to Shrewsbury some day.

When I come, please have the Field Day west or south of Shrewsbury. One of the good old spots, like Bretton, Sharpstones, or Stretton, or Upper Edgebold - I mean UPPER EDGEBOLD.(3)

I must write again to the Man. I am bad about writing to France.

(1) By reading The Path to Rome.

(2) King's College, Cambridge.

(3) As the names of places are written in Military Reports.

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To The Men - The New House.

Radlett.

Dec. 8, 1915.

This is not very good about my:-

(i) Captain Comfy Pipe

(ii) Haversack.

(iii) Kitch Snapshots (1)

because they absolutley must (with possible exception of (i) [Why do you use phrases like 'the possible exception', 'mot cliche', and all that?]) be in the house somewhere.

i and ii are part of my kit, and iii is moral kit. The appeal ad misercordiam. But, I repeat, that stuff is in the New House somewhere.

I have written the outline of a melodrama about the Kaiser imprisoned in the island of Sheppey six months after the War, guarded by the 6th R.B.. It will be performed in the S. Hippodrome on Christmas Day; topical, and 'depends largely for its success upon facial expression'.

The N.C.O.'s and riflemen comedians, who are acting, file in with turns of their own, which are clever, but also noisy and spinal, and there is a good deal of wedding guest about the whole thing, on my part.

You had a sing-song last night, I make no doubt. Also you are correcting papers and drinking soups with A.E.K. at 2.10 a.m.

(1) Photographs taken by A.E.K. of the School Corps on Caradoc at Church Stretton.

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To H.E.E. Howson.

Sheerness.

December 27, 1915.

I had the strangest Christmas Day. Most of it spent in the Sheerness Hippodrome, where I was part author and stage manager of:-

(thus the poster)

which we rehearsed all day for an evening's entertainment to the Battalion and their billet landladies. Some good comic men in the Battalion last evening.

I went to the dock-yard church with Routh, and we had Adeste Fideles, but in English.

Steuart Wilson and I went to hear Sapellnikoff yesterday in that same Hippodrome, and a woman sang the worst songs in Europe.

'Once in an old-world English country town,'I met a maid

'Gopwned in brown;

'It quite enhanced here loveliness.'

The notes were rather worse than the words, but it ended with a change of key and on a top A, so we all applauded loudly and shivered, and I took in my Sam Browne belt one.

I am well into War and Peace (L. Tolstoy) - it was very heavy going at first, but I am now excited about it.

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To H.E.E. Howson.

Sheernes.

January 21, 1916.

Route march this morning. At the head of the column I with a heavy pack argued solidly all the way round about respectability and Christianity and church-going, and what a gentleman is, etc. etc.

Thank Kitch for his letter. Of course I have read all Barry (1). It is a wonderful book.

(1) Religion and the War, by the Rev. F.R. Barry.

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To His Sister and Brother-In-Law.

Sheerness.

January 24,(2) 1916.

Thank you both very much for your greetings to-day. Yes, I've had a good day, thank you; listening to the band all morning, and chose and criticised pieces for performance at Mess to-night, was a hare in a paper-chase this afternoon, was caught by a swift sergeant after plunging through dyke after dyke, had a good hot bath afterwards, and am feeling fir, and propose (war or no war) to depart from my usual abstention and drink intoxicating liquor at dinner.

(2) His birthday.

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E.H.L.S. (Evelyn Southwell)

February to July 1916.

Soon after returning from leave, and on the day after White reached France, Southwell was transferred from D Company to take command of C Company. This was on February 10, and on the 20th the Battalion moved south from Belgium to France, moving by train to Halloy (where Southwell speaks of a great ride to get a football for his men), and then, by Occoches and Grand Rullecourt, to Sombrin and Simencourt, where he was again in the trenches. During this journey south he met White near Canaples.

On March 21 a senior officer, Capt. Barclay, took over the command of C Company, though not for long. On April 11 Southwell started for England, but on reaching Boulogne found that all leave was cancelled, and had to return. On April 20 he regained his command of his Company, as Capt. Barclay was transferred to the 1st Battalion; and it was about this time that Southwell was gazetted Captain.

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On May 4 he was home on leave, and spent a day at Shrewsbury. This is taken from a letter written about him after his death:

'He was (as if by intuition) a "discerner of spirits". But (most impressive of all) he was strictly impartial. He never allowed one love to interfere with the claims of another. An instance of this occurred during his last leave. He left his parents during what might (and actually did) prove to be his last leave, in order to go to Shrewsbury and see young Blakeway, who was ill. It was the same during the months of his training on Salisbury Plain. He was always going somewhere to see some one (often at great distance), who he thought would wish to see him.'

After his leave he returned to the same part of the line, where he mentions little of military interest except a gas alarm, on May 20. From this time onwards his letters and diaries are full of the comong summer. On June 11 Capt. H.W Garton, a fellow Etonian, with whose brother he had rowed at Oxford, rejoined the Battalion, and again Southwell lost the command of the Company to a senior officer. For a time he was at the 14th Divisional School of Instruction at Hauteville, and then returned to the Battalion.

On July 1, White was killed in an attack before Mailly-Maillet.

The story continues in Southwell's own words.

[Neil Mackenzie]

Oh! look. A son of Prof. Sorley, who was at K.C. (2) Choir School under me, was killed recently in France; he had left Marlborough last summer, and seems to have developed into a remarkable person. I have got hold of three poems of his. I haven't time to write it all out, so on second thoughts I'll bring them to Shrewsbury some day.

I assume he is referring to the poet Charles Sorley

We have had several threads that refer to him including this one.

Neil

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DIARY.

Sombrin.

Tuesday, Feb. 29.

We found we had quite a good Mess room in one house, with a kitchen on the right; beyond that, Barn with Officer's servants and some A.S.C. Left of that, bed-room used as sitting room by A.S.C. and Officer's servants by day.

Left, black wood mantelpiece, plates, crucifix, and scent bottles. Beneath it, recess for stove, but no fire there; still, it was not cold. Opposite the usual bisected stable door, light wood side-board; placard 'Fete Nationale de Jeanne d'Arc (when is that?), copy of 'Angelus'; left of that, big coloured plate of French uniforms, surmounted by France in chariot with two lions - 'triomphe de la Rep: Francais'. Right of that, barometer. Left Centre, table, spotlessly clean, and with the inevitable oil-cloth. Right Wall, dresser with our gramaphone; 'Souveir de la Mission de 1912' (obscure, these missions).

That afternoon we had a very successful outing; the only Company that went out, I think. At three I marched and doubled them out of the village; up the hill; round an oblong field; easy; into the next field. Short speech on firness by me in three lines; physical exercise; doubled that field also. Rapid march down road a quarter of a mile more and back pretty smartly.

In the evening, entered Lewis gunners on Company Roll and wrote to them.

After we listened to our gramaphone and records we borrow from Irving. The chief features I have already mentioned; but to my huge delight Polgreen (, who messed with us, brought his album with Schubert's Unfinished Quartet, and I remember the Quinby (1) evenings and my Men. That was very good.

(1) A friend with whom there used to be Chamber-Music at Shrewsbury on Saturday nights, White taking part.

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Hi Neil,

Thanks for that. The one and same I believe.

Andy

[marina]

Oh! look. A son of Prof. Sorley, who was at K.C. (2) Choir School under me, was killed recently in France; he had left Marlborough last summer, and seems to have developed into a remarkable person. I have got hold of three poems of his.

Charles Hamilton Sprley. This is my favourite poem of his:

When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead

When you see millions of the mouthless dead

Across your dreams in pale battalions go,

Say not soft things as other men have said,

That you'll remember. For you need not so.

Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know

It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?

Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.

Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.

Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,

"Yet many a better one has died before."

Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you

Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,

It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.

Great death has made all his for evermore.

Charles Hamilton Sorley

'Is is easy to be dead' - always sticks in my mind.

Marina

[marina]

Sorry! Didn't see Neil's post until after I'd made mine!

Marina

[marina]

July 1, White was killed in an attack before Mailly-Maillet.

The story continues in Southwell's own words.

Oh, that was sudden!

marina

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Yes, my thoughts exactly, but, have no fear a lot more to come about White.

Andy

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Sombrin

Wednesday, March 2, 1916.

Procession of boats (1) to-day, I wonder? It is fifteen years since I took part in my first, and a few things have happened since then.

This was one of the morings when the C.S.M. and I agreed that after the War there would be a few funny things to look back upon. There was a lot of shuffling about of 'B' and 'C' on the road, to the side of our real road, but the one on which we were drawn up waiting to join the column. We went down it some way, and helped, and turned about. Then 'B' came, of course through thousands of lorries, all anyhow. So we had to shift down. Too far. Back. Not far enough. Back. About turn. Found old 'B' with its 'second front section of fours marking like good 'uns, and nobody else giving a damn', as I observed to the C.S.M.

However, we did get going then, and had a pretty good march. Very cold, but fresh, and no one was very tired. It reminds me that one does not ordinarily remain as strong as one was before coming out - or so it seems to me. I may be wrong, but I should say that I felt an eight miles march more than I used to on the Plain. Of course, though, I have been ill since then, and also probably smoked too much; and I expect one is really no weaker in oneself.

As I was saying, I am afraid one becomes rather a beast of burden on these treks. I was absolutely happy, I think, on the whole of them, or nearly so; but just now the certain glory of the earth is not exactly unremarked, but it is 'noted' like a message from H.Q., and I am not content with that.

(1) At Eton

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Simencourt.

March 18, 1916.

The Reformed Church at Achicourt.

It was a pretty little chapel from the outside, that stood next door to my H.Q. Inside it was rerribly 'reformed', for there was not a vestige of an altar of any kind; only a huge pulpit with a canopy stood against the farther wall, and beneath that a lecturn. Both places, and the gallery at what I will call the west end, had numerous service books, and books of other men's sermons, some of them old eighteenth-century tomes. There was also a great number of their 'cantiques', which were printed as though every one knew all about them and their origin, which I certainly do not. They are a kind of potted Psalms in verse.

Thus appropriately,

Ps. 2. D'ou vient ce bruit parmi les nations?

E.g.f./E.D. A quoi porte leur impuissante haine?

Peuples, pourquoi dans vos illiusions.

g.b.a.g./F. Vous flattez-vous d'une esperance vaine ?

Je vois ligues les princes de la terre

Dans leurs conseils; les grands ont presume

D'etre assez forts du declarer la guerre

A l'Eternel, a son Oint bien aime.

And PS. 1, with its so typical inversions :-

Heureux celui qui fuit des vicieux

Et le commerce et l'exemple odieux:

Qui des pecheurs hait la triompheuse voie

Et des moqueurs la crimnelle joie,

Qui, invoquant Dieu, ne se plait qu'en sa loi,

Et nuit et jour la medite avec foi.

(Fin)

[marina]

Ps. 2. D'ou vient ce bruit parmi les nations?

E.g.f./E.D. A quoi porte leur impuissante haine?

Still appropriate today.

Marina

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It is full of 'Peuples, venez......', and the whole thing is obviously faithfully portrayed in Athalie. But I must only quote once more. After passing an ominous

Mon Dieu, quelle guerre cruelle!

(not from a Psalm, I think), I came to -

Luther's Hymn, to the usual tune; thus

C'est un rempart que notre Dieu,

Si l'on nous fait injure;

Son bras puissant nous tiendra lieu

Et de fort et d'armure.

L'ennemi contre nous

Redouble de courroux,

Vaine colere! - Que pourrait l'Adversaire? -

L'Eternel detonne sos coups.

(Fin)

But I cannot let Haessler's tune go (not a Passion hymn this tune; it is called Cant: 49, but it is not from a Psalm) :-

Jamais Dieu ne delaisse

Qui se confie en lui,

Si le monde m'oppresse,

Jesu est mon appui.

Ce Dien bon et fidele

Garde en sa paix les siens

Pour la vie eternelle,

Et les comble de biend.

It is easily believed, as I write (on this gorgoeus Spring morning) chez Briache, Arras, March 18.

(The book was published '63 and I must quote the end of the Avant-Propos.

'Puisse.....ce livre d'orgue contribuer puissamment.....a relever le gout du chant sacre dans les assemblees de fideles et dans les familles, et seconder fructeusement l'organiste dans sa belle et sainte mission')

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The Cathedral

March 17, 1916.

So before breakfast I had found my way, though not too easily. Some cathedrals are easier to find than others; their towers still stand to show the way. Here it was not incongruous that the entry to the Cathedral was by the ruins of the Musee. I might have thought I had come straight on the east end, for before me lay a large altar with long rails. So true is it that men find themselves in the Sanctuary unawares. But it was the south transeptt, so, as in duty bound, I made my way back to the left and found the west door. It is all very Byzantine, of course, and the resemblance to St. Paul's was increased by the ring of houses below the high steps. But I have known good hours in St. Paul's, and anyhow the church is in ruins.......Yes, it has paid in full, as no doubt has many a penitent, who has stood wonderingly by the ruined confessionals which line the Aisle. That aisle is not so ruined as the northern, and thus it came that the inscriptions on the stations of the Cross, though not the carving, still remained; and selecting one which bore the number of my Regiment, I stood over against it by the pillar to look towards the chancel. I do not know whether it was tower or dome that lay in ruins a little farther east; but though it was gone, the four central arches, with the deep blue of the spring sky for their only burden, still stood to their post for the glory of God. Only one pigeon strutted past me as I went; but perhaps he felt his responsibilities, for the lonely solemnity of his walk was like the memory of a thousand vergers. It might indeed have been his little protest when, later, a little piece of roof fell at my feet; for he passed me flying on his way to the arches a moment before it came. But I was now at the Chancel steps, and before me lay the altar, with it's image and inscription

'Ave Regina Caeli'

in gold on blue. No wonder if Our Lady of Lourdes veiled her head beneath a huge canvas sheet, for it was too much an irony that she should look for ever towards a desolate altar with the legend

'Autel Privilegie a Perpetuite'

But it was not really to end sadly, my little visit; for somethig like a triumphant cry from the ruins awaited me at the door as I went out. For there, on the battered wall, stood out this rudely scratched memorial, which as I read, I remembered the glorious endurances of this adorable people, and I thought with envy of the heroes who had perhaps this for their only commemoration, and for type the four unbroken arches of the nave, that reached up towards the Spring to bear hope on their shoulders:-

'Honneur aux Braves Poilus du - eme qui ont fait tout leur devoir.'

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March 20, 1916.

11 a.m. Down the street past H.Q. murmuring 'As long as they let me move about......'

4 p.m. Robert Radford singing Nazareth (actually as I write, in our sitting-room chez Briache) on gramaphone. I heard him at the Hereford Festival, from the Chantry with C.A.A.

'Though poor be the chambre.......'

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March 21, 1916.

We go in to-night.

At this moment me voila de retour from the little church of Achicourt. I went on the H.Q. orderly's cycle to return the Livre d'Orgue I took away to copy those hymns from. So I returned that book and I stayed for a few moments in that little gallery. 'The Lord of Hosts is with us', and thrice, 'Underneath are the everlasting arms'. I know now what Odysseus meant by his action on returning:-

Or rather, I have known it before, as long ago as Houtkerque.

I was not altogether dry of eye, though before ever I started. For I had been reading C.A.A.'s letter about both of us trying to build the New Jerusalem: 'and though neither your trenches.........may be very showy bricks, let's hope they'll be used in the basement.' I read that out at tea to C Company officers, and they applauded it not a little, and I found myself to my amazement nearly choking.

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Monday, April 3, 1916.

'There is an officer coming (1) to see your trenches,' said the Adjutant on the phone.' I want you to hand over the Company to him. - No end of a man,' he went on; 'Military Cross, Captain 1st R.B., and all that.'

That was a bit sudden, but obviously for the enormous advantage of the Company; and as I said in my letter home, this War is not being run entirely to gratify the ambitions of the fourth-rate and unimportant subalterns!!.....

So that's that, and now behold me once more a subaltern, under authority better than I ever exercised, and likely to have yet another chance of learning my job! Perhaps I may be a soldier yet if the War lasts long enough......

To-day's gossip is rather fun. It appears some Frenchman has prophesied that the War will be over in 96 hours from this morning! The offensive at Verdun is to break down then, and that means the end. So that was why the men in the butts to-day might have heard quite solemnly (bless their simple souls) saying, 'Yes, I got that at two this afternoon; so won't be long in the trenches this next trip!'

Some one should really write a book on war rumours and gossip; it would be quite as entertaining as the real history.

(1) Captain Barclay

[marina]

How painful those false hopes must have been. There's another thread about rumours of tunnels unnder no man's land where soldiers could hide, and angels that bore away the dead.

Marina

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Wednesday, April 5, 1916.

I biked on ahead during the afternoon to 'take over', as I generally do. I took, it being day, the usual longer route behind the hills:- Simencourt - Berneville - Warlus - Dainville - Achicourt. But this time I had to push my machine down railway for one quarter of a mile, the last bit of raod being closed by day, and I was pretty hot when I arrived at the little chapel. For as usual I did not forget to stop there. I have come to love that little village behind the line, as indeed so many other places out here; and it will, I hope, be long before I forget it and the quaint little Reformed Church of France in which, on more than one accasion now, I have found peacefulness and sanctuary.

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Wednesday, April 12, 1916.

A very delightful and easy morning. Trayler had the gramaphone, and agian we had, of course, Kirkby Lunn singing 'O Lovely Night', and a Miss Allen singing 'Who'll buy my strawberries?' After tea we caught two motor lorries which took us to St. Pol, twenty miles away. This was a great run; it poured with rain, but the run did me good and I thought with enthusiasm of many places. ..........It was glorious to have Merry with me all the time.

St. Pol was exciting because it held shops and lit windows; and I delighted myself with gazing, with eyes glued to these, at anything, however garish, exposed in the window. I bought several post-cards and an Easter card or two. One, like my old Houtkerque, was entitled

'Until The End'

And lacked something in the way of idiom.