27th January, 1916.
There is not much news. We are doing stupid things like Battalion Drill and so forth. Yesterday I marched the men eight miles to a bath and back - their first since they started from the rest village. They also got their first clean shirt. To-day we had a feint alarm at 4.30a.m., and tumbled out in the dark for one and a half hours in fighting order. Now 6p.m., have just had my hair cut and here I am writing.
We expect to go into the trenches the beginning of next week, but don't count on it. No digging parties this week. How is Frdk. ? I haven't heard from him.


Andy

29th January, 1916.
I like the handkerdhiefs you send. Washing is fitful. Sometimes my servant does it, and sometimes a neighbouring farmeress. The results are very shady - but it's useful for handkerchiefs and such. My towels get blacker and blacker under his laundering.
I saw a letter in the Times the other day advocating that the sandbags should be coloured instead of white. It would be very difficult to find one that wasn't the colour of the Flanders mud once it has been disembarked. O f course in summer it would take longer.
You wanted to know about the rest camps, which I thought I had described. Well, it consists of a large field or series of fields (there being no hedges) churned into mud - no grass - board walks 18 in. wide through it and huts and tents in rows. We have a hut, and the men huts or tents, according to their luck.
A broad ditch runs at the bottom of the field and out of that water water (and a good deal of water for our tea, I fancy, and the mens tea) is fetched.Rats run in every direction at night, and some people chase them through the slime with electric torches and sticks. The huts are as at Shurland, only smaller, and mostly with mansard roofs, so that you can only stand upright in themiddle. Voila! I am sitting by myself in ours at present and have been most of the afternoon, T. having gone up to see the new trenches and the others having an afternoon off.
Sunday. T. came back last night and said the trenches are not so bad as they might be. We shall be there off and on for a fortnight, so you will get rather shorter letters.
I had a hot bath yesterday in I.'s bath, and just as I was getting in, a gas alert or alarm sounded and all the gas helmets had to be inspected, and as I was the only officer at home, so to speak, I had to bustle through the bath and do them.
The water inspection is like our experience at the paper mill when the military visited us. Strict orders that the men drink only the water supplied. Practice, to drink out of any shell hole they see. The water supplied isn't enough. Of course it is nearly always turned into tea, which, with inoculation, I suppose, prevents the consequences that might be expected.
I read an amusing account in the paper of Friday of a visit by seven influential recruiters of the firing line. The spokesman described how they came under shell-fire and fled to dug-outs, where they waited hours. But they found the dug-outs dry and airy and nearly all carpeted. T. suggests that they must have been taken to Boulogne or somewhere, and the shell fire was a bomb party practising bombs. I don't know whether that sort of nonsense is udeful or not; after all there is something to be said for the truth on most occasions.
My servant is doing rather better, but he is an old humbug. Told me he was no longer young - getting on for 40!.


Andy

Sunday, 30th January, 1916.
C Coy. is stopping back after all for a day or two more.


Andy

Loved the Times letter abpout coloured sandbags - good to know the trivia was still rampant then!

And the recruiters visit to the carpeted dugouts - spin doctors! nothing changes!
Marina

Rest Camp, 1st February, 1916.
I am so sorry about Frdk. It will be a great blow to him, I know, not because of the climbing or anything of that sort, but because he'll hate not to be able to rush about on other people's behalf, and will, of course, not be able to see himself in the heroically wounded light.
I don't think it's going to be any good my telling you I'm likely to be in the trenches soon or otherwise: at present I'm still here with the Coy. and may go up for a day for some time to come. So you'd better just think I'm in the best possible place. We're across the road from the old camp - in what was the Hd. Quarters - a much finer hut, and I have a bed - sacking hung over boards - which I must say I like much less than the floor as it sags in the middle, which the floor doesn't. No doubt it's less draughty, and it has started to freeze and be cold at nights, I dare say the bed is on the whole an improvement.

Andy

Hobson's Choice!
Marina

I have to be honest and say - it REALLY bothers me - for some reason beyond my ken - that Robert very rarely says anything to show that he knows she worries about him.....!! but the last letter had a tiny ray


Call me a romantic but I just wish he would give her "something" .......!! I keep waiting ..... !!

Sorry I interupted again!

Annie

Annie,
Not an interuption, comments are always welcome. I see your point, who knows maybe Caroline edited the really personal stuff, know I sure as hell would do. After all, would you like all your emotions and luvy duvy stuff to be put in print for family, friends and strangers to read and make judgement on!!!!!

Andy

Annie,
To give you another example of an officers letters. This one comes from Edward Kay-Shuttleworth, The Rifle Brigade.
5th December, 1915.
"Darlingest"
Our wedding day. I have had had by far and away the happiest year of my life. Heaven's blessing be for ever on you and darling Pamela. How I loved seeing you both, and looking so lovely................


Andy

Without trying to hijack your thread - before I started reading about Robert - this diary was a favourite for me! short and funny and endearing ..... no stiff upper lip!

http://www.geocities.com/mrselwyn/

I just loved the honesty of it! Robert pains me because he is so stoic - I'm willing him to tell Caroline - "I miss the smell of your hair or the touch of your hand on my back " something ...!
but as you say she probably edited the letters - though I did ask you that before I think!!

Annie

27th Janaury, 1916. (To His Mother)
Many thanks for the magnificent parcel of biscuits and rocks and socks and all the other things. The whole mess rose en masse at the Edinburgh Rock and pigged it. It seems very much a thing to have now and then. But you mustn't send so much at a time. We simply can't eat it, and eat too much in the effort. So economise, my mother, and help your country and your son at the same time.
The scarf from Raymond and Meriel is really very useful; I mostly wear it round my waist in the evenings.

Andy

The Raymond and Meriel are Raymond and Meriel Vernede, son and daughter of his brother Arthur, of the I.C.S.

Andy

3rd February,1916. Rest Camp
Just a line before we go up to the trenches. Only three days at a time. I will try and write each day but don't count on it. Not always easy to write and not always easy to send if you do.

Andy

he does say several times throughout the letters about her worrying. She's not to worry because... Or he's out of the trenches so no need to worry.
There is a feeling of their closeness in these letters - he shares his thoughts, up and down, in a way that many would not. Their opness is palpable. And like Andy, I feel sure she's edited the prersonal bits. I would have too, I think. Too close and private, and and of no use to anyone else. Whereas the rest of the letters provide a real insight into the soldier's life at that time - which is why she published them. I think to there is a very real feeling that she wished to honour Robert and his thinking and ability,and allo the men he served with, so well described in the letters - not necessarily their relationship, if you see what I mean.
Marina

Hi Marina!

I do love the way he shares everything that is happening to him - it gives a very special insight into his psyche - and the way he deals with people places and things !!
Andy is probably GGRRRRRing at me - saying "Women"!!! but that's not what I mean.....! I appreciate the other example he gave was a little extreme - but I imagine her waiting for his letters - waiting until she is entirely alone - maybe climbing into bed before savouring the act of opening the envelope and reading...!! I'm trying to read between the lines - I suppose!!
OK I'm done now Andy !!

Annie

Hi Annie,
No, I can't say Grrrrrrr or women. I get the impression of a very close relationship here, although not stated in the words that Caroline has printed.
I have many letters books, actual letters and memorial books in my library/collection and they all vary dramatically in style and content with regard to their relationships. The other example was just such variation.
The content of Robert's letters gives you such an insight into the daily lives of what some of these soldiers faced and Robert's style of trying to describe what he is experiencing I find candid and makes me think a little more of the life he led. The way he relates such things as the effect of gas on foliage is something I have never seen described before and I find refreshing and thought provoking.

Andy

Hi, Annie,
Of course, also to be taken into consideration is the fact that he is a writer. He may well have used parts of the letters to record his thoughts and observations for future use in a novel or poem. He complains more than once in his letters about having no peace to write and nothing drives a writer nuttier than having lots of things he wishes to record but no chance to do it. Caroline would have understood that, and so published for him when he could not use the material he had accumulated. As for the bits she read when she went ot bed...well, not for public consumption! As a writer's wife, she would know the difference between the personal and the business end.
Marina
Marina

4th Febraury, 1916. Trenches
I don't know if this will get off to-day. I came up with the rear last night, and the blighters shelled the road as we went, one about 100yds. behind, another in front and off to the left and right - cannon if front of them, in fact - but not bad. And all the old hands are ready with stories of how they came along with shrapnel bursting over their heads in the old days. The nuisance was not knowing whether the next is going to be in front or behind.
Several other Regiments got off the road and stopped, but the R.B.'s marched on - not, I may say, without my consulting my sergeant, as I fancy I should have stopped myself, and taken shelter, though it's the wrong thing to do unless the shelling is very heavy. The trouble is to know what is heavy and what isn't. However, we arrived quite safely, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that this is about the worst trench that even some of the sergeant's have been in. More for it's general unpleasantness than for anything else. You can easily step in over your thigh boots in mud; I'm writing in a dug-out in which you can't sit upright and through which there is a trickle of water; the stench in parts is too appalling for words, and we have been having shells right over our heads, luckily doing no damage, for the last four hours, starting at breakfast. If you move by day you have to go double. Anyone who finds it "ripping" is very much to be envied, if he exists, but I doubt it. T. suggested the people you mentioned must be with one of the armies that have never been in the trenches. And you must remember that gunners probably don't see one shell to a thousand that they fire.
However, we've had no casualties as yet, and I dare say shan't. To tell you of the advantage of this trench - one gets much more sleep, as one simply can't move about much; and my feet are warm with a pair of thick soles in the gum boots and three pair of thick socks.
The view from here is rather quaint. On our right front is a wood with every tree struck by lightning, as it were, and the ground below blackened too. This afternoon has turned fine, after rain all night, and I have been watching the snipers sniping while our guns have begun to pound their trenches in retaliation, and you see volumes of smoke and a German trench fly into the air with a crash. I just say it strikes me as omly less horrible than the English ones doing so; but it always bucks the men to see our guns getting to work, and they will stand any amount of pounding themselves for the sake of it.


Andy

5th February, 1916. Trenches
All is well, except that I've rather gone of my feed in this filthy place. It's largely due to the smell and the dirt of the food. Our dug-out really is a floor of mire which absorbs anything dropped in it, and is composed, I should say, largely of other people's rotting socks and bread crumbs! And one wanders about over the knee in quagmire, never knowing when you're going deeper. Fearful row, guns going all the time. We've had no casualties except two men shot by snipers, one killed - the first in C Coy. since I joined - which is extraordinarily good. And this man T. had warned to keep his head down only five minutes before. One calls it carelessness, but the fact is, after you've stooped till your back aches, it's almost beyond human nature not to straighten up occasionally.
I went out with a wiring party in front of the trenches last night for about an hour and a half. T. went himself with the men - he's very nice in that way, so I could not offer to go too. It sounds m,ore exciting than it is. I mostly got mixed up with the wire in the dark, while one of the corporals did all the work; and we weren't fired on, except by stray bullets, and put quite a fair amount. The old hands don't mind a bit but the boys don't like it. We come out tomorrow.
Better close before the mud out of my hair or neck falls on this. Haven't washed since coming in. Nor has anybody.


Andy

Sunday, 6th ?, February, 1916.
I am very well and fit but I suppose I have just what it can be like. We have been heavily shelled for about two hours, and one sat there with intervals of seconds, it seemed, not knowing where the next would come. The Boches have just left off for the day, I hope, as, though the casualties were not heavy, it was enough for eveybody's nerves. Several men are suffering from shock - shivering and quaking and having to be carried off on stretchers. I'm sitting beside a bad case now - he can't even move. The marvel is that he came out alive - he was one of four in a dug-out, and was pulled out uninjured, the rest being killed. I don't want to meet any one who's had a ripping time out here.
By the way, this man has my scarf Raymond and Meriel gave me. I wish you'd send me another like it - thick wool, loosely knitted, about a foot wide and three yards long - the longer the better. T. is splendid under this sort of thing. I wasn't as bad as I expected. I was in our dug-out to begin with the two Buff officers and got a stone pretty hard on my tin hat, after which I proposed we should move out, which we did, and the dug-out was knocked in a little later. Sat behind the parapet with the Buffs trying to find a safe place, but there wasn't any available. Found a man horribly injured in the face, with the C.S.M. who had just escaped. Tried to give him morphia, but couldn't manage it, so went for stretcher-bearers, who attended to him.
Boches have just begun shelling again - confound them - after a half hour's interval. Will send this off if we get out safely. We move in about three hours - none to soon.
Monday. Arrived here safe and sound in support trenches about 3.30a.m. after the most unpleasant day - very nearly - that I've had. I still think it's right that war should be damnable, but I wish everybody could have an idea of how beastly it can be.
The boches shelled us twice yesterday after I wrote, but only for a little, I'm glad to say, as everybody had had enough, I think, and several of the oldest hands said it was the worst shelling theu had ever been through. Our casualties were remarkably small considering that wherever you crouched two or three shells seem to spilt over your head every second. We had only five killed and about a dozen injured. T. sat most of the time with a wounded man across his knees, and the man said he knew it would be alright when the captain came along: which I thought was rather nice. One of our best sergeants was killed - a very nice man who was rather a friend of mine, though not in my platoon. I think the men are wonderful and awfully good to one another.
The C.S.M. was knocked senseless by the same shell that injured the man I mentioned, and when he came to, dragged him into the dug-out, to which I traced them by a pool of blood. Even the chef, when I went out for stretcher-bearers, dashed out and leapt an open part of the trench where it had been crumped in to go and help, which I'm afraid will render me weak-minded towards his cookery in future; the shells flying as hard as ever. It's an extraordinary sensation - every portion of the trenches seemed to have shells exploding over them and you were nearly deafened by the near ones. I really was in a great state of funk, but I'm not sure that it's avoidable. The least sensitive of the men, I fancy, are strung up to the last pitch, and I doubt even T. was as cool as he looked, though looking it is all the battle under the circumstances.
C. was our only other officer there and he was very cool, and pulled the living man out of the smashed dug-out, which was a terrible sight. I would like all praisers of war to be under that sort of fire for a day, and if any remained, they would have less to say for it. The Buff youths were young and quite cheery, though they would ask me where to go, which I wasn't at all competent to tell them, and had to make them try several places without finding any that was really of use.
At the end of it - about 5 o'clock - T., C. and I ate cake without tea and waited for the Regiment that was due to relieve us. The latter arrived about two or three hours after time - a thing that can be singularly annoying under those circumstances, as the Boches began shelling again after we should have been well away, and I thought it was all going to recommence for another for another three hours. Luckily it didn't and I got off with my party about 11.30p.m. for a five mile walk in thigh gum-boots and all our packs and things. I don't know when I have been more hot and exhausted. Rather over half-way we came to the place where we hand in the gum-boots - an enormous dark building where they gave us hot soup (it tasted of tea and oxo mixed - in muddy cups) grateful and comforting nevertheless. During the last half of the way we passed a man who'd gone lame from another platoon and I dropped behind to give him directions, but couldn't find him in the dark, so went on by myself. Rather eerie in the dark in unknown country with the sound of the guns in the distance.
I was very glad to get in at 3.30a.m. and find hot tea and a bed. Have washed this morning - first time for five days!.
Outside there is the most peaceful scene I have seen for weeks - green fields and unstuck trees, though the brutes put a few shells over here even, yesterday.
I couldn't get this off yesterday as there was no posting during the shells, but it will go this after-noon.
I feel rather doubtful as to whether I should tell you quite the unpleasantest side like this; but I think that it's rather good that nowadays, when women have so much influence, they should not be fooled with the rosy side of things only. I don't think I've exxaggerated and I don't think I'm using my imagination. At any rate I'm willing to bet that not one of the men but would have given a good deal to be out of it.


Andy

After reading this paragraph - I was reminded of this - there were obviously some women who thought differently! Good job Robert didn't know about this ..........!!

Feminine encouragement... A Margaret Fielding has a letter published in the local press, expressing delight at recent female interest in men wearing khaki. She exhorts the locals to:
quote:
enlist still further the influence of young women and girls of St Helens n the cause of King & Country, by asking them to withhold their favours from those who have declined to assist their country in its hour of greatest need...[the] class of collared cads and cuffed cowards.
[Reporter 11.8.14]
Unfortunately, she doesn't elaborate upon her personal contribution to boosting recruitment.

I'm tremendously moved by Robert's narrative - my heart goes out to the CSM and the chef! the thought of them being "knocked about " and yet still be able to think of others - how incredible that they did what they needed to do - in spite of their own situations
Poor Caroline - she must have been worried sick!

Annie

Hi Annie,
This is one of the reasons that I find Robert's letters so appealing. In some cases his descriptions bring the event alive, to a degree, and makes you think of things that a lot of the letters I have, and have read do not.

Andy

One thing that struck me was - he was sitting next to a shell shocked man and yet he was writing!
Now I know for sure that he is scared! - that he is writing to get over the shock to himself - this is his therapy - he has to get out what is happening to him - and he has to do it in the most truthful way he can - but he's still holding back - because of Caroline ..... That such a description could be written there and then - with the roar of the continuing battle still about Robert's ears -
not in the tranquillity of an emotion remembered many years afterwards !! makes you wonder ...

Annie

Wednesday, 8th or 9th February, 1916.
Couldn't get you a letter yesterday as I slept most of the time after a fatigue party up to 2.30a.m. and then had to hustle to another at 4.30p.m. Got back at 2.30a.m. this morning. Really rather boring - dripping wet - covered with mud - shelled at intervals, and so on. Will write more soon.


Andy

I wonder what he'd say to the men who claim to have had a 'ripping time' in the trenches? Shows the differences in personality I suppose. Mnay men never told what it was really like. Robert did, tremendously vividly.
That was a good article, Annie - I've heard about the giving of 'white feathers' and so on to men deemed to be shirking - even men who had been wounded or were in essential reserved operations. Caroline was obviously of a different temper.
Marina

Wednesday, 9th February, 1916.
We aren't up again for some days, and I don't suppose we shall have another day like Sunday for some time to come. I hope not. It seemed impossible that we should get off so lightly. I suppose they put over twenty shells a minute on the average. I sent you a line to-day to catch the post, which, having slept from 2.30 to nearly 12, I hadn't time to make longer. It was a horrible wet night, and I led them slightly astray - not in the general direction, but taking a longer road than I need have done, which annoyed me rather, amd ending up about a quarter of an hour from the spot without being sure where I was. However, I found a General there who lent me an orderly for the rest of the route, and seemed very amiable, and we got in about half an hour late. It didn't much matter, and came from depending on a sergeant who said he knew the road instead of making sure of it myself, which in the dark wasn't too easy. As it happened, I went a very safe way and we never got a shell, going or coming, though we got some where we were digging.
You've no idea what it is like taking 100 men through an unknown bad trench at night. Sometimes you're on a board, then well over your knees in mire, then you trip over a wire or climb over a portion that has been knocked in by shells, or you come through a tunnel or out into an open quagmire. Everybody ought to sprain their ankles ten times over in the course of three hours of it, but nobody did last night. It's quite a strain in itself, apart from the shells, and the whole job took eight and a half hours. I think the men are fearfully good about it - awfully slow, but they stagger along, grousing a certain amount, but generally cheerful. I believe as you become a veteran soldier you can tell almost exactly when and where a shell is going to burst, which is an advantage in that most of them aren't going to burst exactly where one is standing - not that you could do anything if it were. At present I haven't the foggiest idea where they're coming, and can't even distinguish between ours going off at hand and theirs arriving, which gives me a sort of double share of the artillery effect!
I fancy it's the same with most new folks. Of course during a strafe like Sunday's nobody can tell - there are too many flying too rapidly in all directions at once. I don't wonder the poor injuns didn't like it. The best men get rattled after a certain amount of it.
It's very curious, I think, that without one's paying any attention to it in peace time, some of the braiiest people of all countries have been inventing these infernal weapons, which can and do - besides merely killing - inflict tortures at least as bad as anything the Chinese invented.
I've got a night off to-night, which, after two successive nights, is a considerable boon and blessing, and enables me to write properly.
There are so many ways of getting done in while taking the utmost precautions that I don't wonder the men get absolutely reckless, and care no more about rifle bullets than they do about fleas. Think of the way thay go off in the dark along a road which they know is wept by shrapnel and walk on through it without apparently turning a hair.


Andy

Friday, 11th February, 1916.
I am very fitly, thank you. It was the awful smell that made me feel sick the first few days in the trenches, but I was already much better before they started to strafe us, having kept away from food for a bit.
To-day I have been sitting in the dug-out, doing nothing but doze over a very funny coke brazier, which, however, has kept me warm. We don't go up in the front-line again for a day or two and then only for a very short time. We ought to be out in so-called rest almost by the time you get this.
I led a fairly easy carrying party fatigue last night - got one shell to our right which blew across the road, but nobody was hurt. A bit of mud touched my coat in passing, which indicates the pleasure of these roads. Got back at 10p.m. instead of 2a.m., which was a nice change.
It's been a most slimy day - dismal Flemish rain - a steady stream of it, making puddles everywhere.
I didn't tell you of a letter I censored from one of our sergeants to the mother of one of the men that was killed. It really was one of the nicest I've seen. He said - " We found your son in the ruins of the dug-out, where death must have been instantaneous. His head drooped forward a little, and there was a very peaceful expression on his face as I took him by the hand for the last time." Then he went on to explain how popular he had been with his platoon, and how he had fallen fighting for his country, and enclosed some snowdrops "picked just behind the lines."

Andy

Well done the sergeant who wrote the letter. bet those snowdrops are still pressed between the pages of a bible somewhere.
Marina

To F.G.S.
In support, 11th February, 1916.
My Dear Fred,
I do hope it comtinues to go well with you and you will manage to get back soon and cheer England up. We had a distictly hot time a few days ago in the front line - two hours of what every one agreed was about the fiercest shelling they had known. Extraordinarily few casualties considering, but it is a cruel business. Even to see men suffering from shaock, flopping about the trenches like grassed fish, is enough to sicken one, and some of the face wounds are terrible. They were splendid - most of them will leave any shelter they have got to go and help one of the wounded and they reamin cheerful to the last. nOr is it the sort of heedless gaeity I used to suspect them of, but a gallant effort to make the best of things and not let their morale fall below an ideal. Stretcher-bearers dodging about among shells - some of our older N.C.O.'s cheering up the grenadiers of a service Batt. who had got rattled - a latest draft youth who never took his eye of his loop-hole during the bombardment (so his corporal told me) - these things are rather good. But any-one who hereafter shows a tendency towards exalting war ought to be drowned straight away by his country.
Since then we have gone into support, doing fatigues along shelled roads at night - not a very cheerful occupation, though here again the men are wonderfully good-tempered and cheerful, and march on in the dark without apparently heeding the shells.
Am slightly choked by a coke brazier in a dug-out upon which the dismal Flemish rain drips incessantly - which makes me aware that I'm not writing a particularly happy letter to an invalid, without being able to reform much.


Andy

Saturday - or probably Sunday - and I think 13th February, 1916.
It's a fine day after a very muddy and sodden one. C. and I are still in support with a portion of the Coy. and don't move up till tomorrow; then only for a very short time. Had a whole day's rest yesterday and about ten hour's sleep - not bad. No news beyond that.
My servant has gone sick and I have a new one. I think he will be good.


Andy

Wednesday, 16th February, 1916. In rest again and very fit
I haven't had a letter from you since Sunday and I haven't been able to write you one, and I have had a time, of which I'll tell you as much as seems lawful. I think I wrote on Sunday morning saying that I wasn't going up into the trenches that day, but was going to carry some rations.
Little did I know. We set out in the dark to meet the transport - about fourty of us - and the transport was late at the rendezvous by about an hour, and when it did arrive informed me that rations were not to be taken up till a message came through from the Adjutant. So I withdrew my men off the road into a trench one of the sergeants by luck found, and some shells proceeded to come over. Then I met the doctor outside his dressing station, and he told me there had been heavy shelling most of the day and his colleague had been wounded at the door of the dressing station - right back - and he was afraid there would be casualties.
The walking cases began to come down the road as we waited - a weird sight - bandaged men staggering along in the moonlight.
Presently I received a message to say we were to go forward with the rations, and found the Regimental C.S.M. waiting to conduct us in a great fatigue. Our two companies up had been heavily shelled all day and we were to relieve them - message I ought to have got before I started, but which had not come through. So there we were without our packs, our coats or our gum-boots, going into deep slime for a couple of days or so. We went forward with the stuff; I shouldered a huge sack of coke myslef which I could hardly lift, and the others were almost equally laden, if not quite. As we went down the road, bang went some shells just ahead of us and in the rear, and we all flopped down and I shoved the sack in front of me, not that it would have been any use. We waited till they stopped and then went on to find a four horse waggon just ahead with two horses and the driver killed by one of the shells. Got to the trenches without casualties and found T. waiting to lead us up. My dinner and bed gone for thenight. We got up by slow degrees and took over from one of the other Coys. who had lost very heavily. The boche restarted almost as soon as we got to the Coy. H.Q. dug-out, and there I sat the rest of the evening, and in fact all night - a very strange scene. A place smaller than my study at home into which plopped crowds at intervals to take refuge from the shells.
All sorts and conditions, from the C.O. who had come up to see how things were, to a Scottish doctor hastily sent for with loads of stretcher-bearers. Later, a sergeant from another Regiment - suffering from nerves - dashed in, having abandoned his digging party, of which he felt sure none re-mained, though only one or two were hit. I gave him a kola nut and sent him off; and engineer officers turned up, and officers from other Batts., and the post, bringing quite the best timed parcel I've had, from my mother, containing a cake, gingerbread, dates, Edinburgh Rock, and a pair of socks. The socks I put on over the others, and stuffed myself into some killed or wounded man's gum-boots which I found were full of holes. The rest of the things we and a lot of others lived on for the next twenty-four hours, during which we hadn't a drop of water - only whisky. As a matter of fact, I had a cushy time, comparitively speaking, as T. insisted on placing the riflemen himself and M. did the bombers. It appeared that the trenches were very nearly non-existent, the casualties large, and C Coy. had the pleasant prospect of sitting in what holes remained for some time. The sappers deepened some holes for them during the night, but before morning one of the sergeants I brought up was killed and several men had been buried. It was impossible to stir during the night, but in the early morning T. went round and extricated the half-buried. Most of the next day the Boches shelled again and it grew so heavy in the afternoon that T., M., and I - the only officers up - I. having been taken off the day before with bad shell shock - retired from H.Q. to a sort of drain pipe under the road, where we stood doubled up in water over our thigh gum-boots for two hours. (The other Coy. officers had stood the day before like this in the same place for six hours, and I don't know how they stood it) Shells that burst near roared through the funnel and nearly blew off one's legs. (It was there that I. had been knocked out by shock the day before)
Then the water rose and we cleared out, not relishing the idea of being drowned as well as buried, which seemed possible, as one shell just overhead made the whole place shift. I made sure the Boches were going to attack at the end of it, and said so to T., who doubted it; but as it turned out they did actually give the signal for the assault, and began to get over.

More to come

Continued

Meanwhile P.B. at Batt. H.Q. far back, thought we hade put up a signal for help (which we couldn't do, wires being all cut) and he wired through to the gunners, who presently put up so terrific a barrage that the Boches instead of coming on bolted back - very luckily for us; and at the end of an artillery strafe of some hours, when night arrived, we were told that we should be relieved that night. They say the Boches suffered very heavily. I hope so, to make up for ours. Really the men were wonderful, as always. There was C Coy. - lads of twenty, many of them - planted out in burrows for thirty hours - no communication - T. wouldn't let anybody stir by day. And at the end of it only two posts had broken at all - in one of which one was killed, three buried and unable to stir, and the others suffering from shell-shock; and in the other they had all dug oine another out two or three times before they gave way - besides having three wounded. Then we had the same scene as the night before - reliefs arriving and the wounded being brought down. M. bandaged and I administered laudanum and kola nut for hours.
Then Tatham went off and I moved the Coy. off in a hurricane of snow and icy rain. I'd been wet to the waist for about twenty-four hours, and I imagine the men were wetter, and I had no feeling in my legs for about two hours. They put whizz-bangs over us at one point in the open, but we got bacxk to the support camp in the end, just at daylight. I sat up from 6a.m. to 12 drying my drawers over a brazier (while the others slept) without any trousers on. Later at night we had to move again here, and I was left to bring the Coy. with M. We had to come across open country. Just as we started a terrific bombardment began on both sides, and in a tearing wind and rain we ran right into the Boche barrage and had to bustle through it. My idea was to try and find some shelter, and one of the sergeants positively urged it, but sergeant C. said, "No sir, the best thing is to get on", which accordingly we did. I knew Cousens was the better adviser, and we got through without any casualties and arrived here soon after midnight - wet through again after a most weary trudge. This morning we - the Batt. - were hauled out of bed to receive, I believe, the General's compliments; but he was detained at the last moment, so we didn't. But I believe the whole brigade is to be patted on the back.
9p.m. Divisional orders have just come in, patting Btt. on its back for its behaviour during this strafe. Several people are to be recommended for D.C.M.'s and so forth, including sergeant C., and corporal A. of my platoon, possibly M. who helped some wounded down after fire. A. was the man who shot down the first sdvancing Boches, whi, if he hadn't been at his post watching, might have started an entry for the lot.
I wish I felt really fit to lead these sort of men. I haven't had enough of it to be really useful.
We're out again for some little time - I can't tell you exactly how long.
I don't know if this sort of account is interesting, it could be much more so if I could explain the sort of positions, but I have to avoid anything that could be construed into military information, and so I rather mix it up. It's extraordinary how one doesn't feel the worse for this sort of thing. I don't know when I've been colder or wetter for twenty-four hours: my teeth simply chattered with cold in that drain pipe, and sitting without your trousers for hours in a dug-out on a winter's day doesn't sound salubrious. But I am very well.
Thursday. Hope to get a bath to-day after a fortnight of being plastered with mud from head to foot.


Andy

The bombardment mentioned in the previous letter took place at Hooge and appears in Sir Douglas Haig's despatch dated 19th May 1916, in which Robert's Battalion is mentioned for it's conduct on this occasion.


Andy

3rd Battalion, The Rifle Brigade's war record for this bombardment states the following:-
On February 12th, we again relieved the Buffs and on the 13th were subjected for about nine and a half hours to a very severe shelling from guns of all calibres. Our casualties on that day were 2nd Lieutenants T.H. Henderson and E.J. Ingram wounded and twelve other ranks killed and eighty-six wounded. Communication between the front line and Battalion Headquarters was practically impossible and only one message was got through by runners; this was brought through by Rifleman Norman and Cato, who volunteered to make the attempt and who were awarded the D.C.M. for this action.
During the night of the 13th the shelling continued and the two companies in the front line were relieved by the Companies in reserve with great difficulty, the reflief not being completed till after daylight. During the whole of the morning of the 14th, the bombardment continued and at about fourteen hours it became so intense that it was obvious the Boche meant to attack; accordingly all available guns were asked to stand by. About sixteen hours the enemy blew up a mine under the 9th Bn. Royal Sussex Regiment and started to leave their trenches opposite our front. A "S.O.S." rocket was sent up at this moment and the response which the Artillery very quickly gave to this, together with the skilful handling of a Lewis Gun by Corporal Butler and Rifleman Backshawl - both of whom received the D.C.M. - undoubtedly greatly assisted in preventing the enemy from gaining a footing in our trenches. Our casualities on the 14th were seven other ranks killed and fifty-three wounded. During the night of the 14th - 15th, the Battalion was relieved by the 1st Bn. Royal Fusiliers who had already given us great assistance in repairing our trenches during the night of 13th - 14th.
In addaition to the above awards, 2nd Lieutenant T.H. Henderson received the Military Cross and the Battalion was complimented on its behaviour by the Army Corps and Divisional Commanders and was mentioned in the Birthday despatches of 1916.

Andy

18th Febraury, 1916. Rest Camp.
Yesterday we paraded for the G.O.C. Division, who made quite an eloquent speech, if rather inanimate; said the Batt. had added a new laurel wreath to The Rifle Brigade and set a splendid example to the Batts. who had already benefited by it, under the hardest trial troops could endure, viz., concentrated shell-fire over many hours. It rather amused me to read in the paper the next day an account of several little artilery engagements on the ______ front, which the men quite welcome as a change from the monotony of the trenches.
Blithering idiot. If he had ever seen what remained of a Coy. coming out shattered and wounded and drenched and hungry, to tramp for hours through a snowstorm to some place where they can recuperate. Or if he had ever tried even ten minutes of fierce shell-fire. It's true the men stick it and make little of it, once it's all over; but the stoutest of them would probably give anything to be out of it at the time. Isn't there any imagination in those who stay at home that they can stand that sort of bosh in a leading London newspaper?? I don't know why I am being rhetorical.
The Brigadier, who followed the G.O.C., merely said, R.B.'s, I'm not eloquent. I only want to tell you how proud I am of you and how pleased I am with you - which the men seemed to prefer to the more elaborate oration.
I went in with C. this morning and had a bath - the first for over three weeks. I have never been so piggishly dirty before - my hair plastered with mud like a Papuan's; and I'm not clean after an hour's scrubbing in hot water. To-morrow I take two platoons in to be bathed and shall have another myself.
Have a slight sneeze and sniffle coming on, but you can't wonder at it, can you?
T. draws not bad cartoons, has done one of me standing doubled up in the drain pipe, holding up the skirts of my Aquascutum out of the water - with a large shell in the act of coming through! He entitled his drawing, "The only place Vernede could not go to sleep."
C. and I decided to recommend T. for a distinction, so went to the C.O. about it and he informed us that he had already decided to send in his name for coolness and gallantry; so we hope he will get the D.S.O.
The stupid thing is that, as one realises out here, these honours go to higher command as a matter of course and sometimes evade the lower to avoid giving too many away. War is very like peace in that respect.


Andy

These letters are as good as a film. Terrific.
What's a 'kola nut'? Anyone know?
Nice observation about where the honours go too.
Marina

20th February, 1916. Rest Camp
Not much news. There never is in these rest camps. We've had a fine day today - cold but bright, which is a nice change from the dismal Flanders weather. T. and F. have gone off on leave and I am left in charge of the Coy. for the time being with C. This isn't the same rest camp as the last - perhaps a trifle less muddy, but otherwise very simbly, and we live in a damp hut with a smoky brazier and are not supposed to move about much. I am sorry letters have been taking longer, and I'm afraid you will have had to wait several days for my account of the trenches; but you mustn't ever worry. You see, one is absolutely cut off at such times from posts.Your guess was about right as to the whereabouts; but you see we came off very well out on the whole.
The Corps and Army Commanders have also tendered their thanks to the Batt. which shows we did something I suppose.
I think there will be very fierce fighting for some time to come - both sides, I suppose, are fuly armed now; and there is bound to be some up and down; but don't let anyone make you downhearted. The men are endlessly gallant, and the higher command is bound to learn in time. Anyway we rest here for quite a long time probably and watch aeroplanes go over and get shot at. I have not seen one hit yet by either side. The papers are so complaisant over our little success that they are almost bound to be equally downhearted over every failure - don't believe them. Only believe that we shall win in the end.
I'm afraid I can't begin to think of leave for a couple of months more.
As to your question about quartermasters: some of them do go up occasionally, not to the trenches actually, but to what they call a "dump" on the way there, and so far they undoubtedly run risks. Every road out of here is liable to be shelled, and so far everybody takes his chance. But the man who takes chamces all the time is the infantry soldier in the front trench of the worst sectors; and I don't think England can do too much for these little riflemen when they get home, if they get home.


Andy

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

22nd February, 1916.
Am in the middle of a violent Sneefle. As luck will have it, I've got to go with the other O.C.'s and explore some trenches to-night - not for going into, but so as to know them when we do get into them. It would be quite interesting if I hadn't such a sneefle on, but I dare say being out all night will cure it; and I shall have my scarfs handy.
I'm lying now in my valise to write this at 6p.m. and I thought I would get a doze till 10, when we start, and it's decidely warmer in the valise than out. These dark, damp huts with nothing but a smoky brazier for a few hours a day are well calculated to make one sneef, even if I hadn't had twenty-four hours or more of wetness in that drain pipe trench. I am sure decent comfort between whiles is what they want, and what neither we nor the men get in any sufficient quantity.
9.15p.m. Have dozed a certain amount and eaten a large meal, so can't be very bad. I expect I'll be back to-morrow in time to add to this before the post goes; but will put it in an envelope in case not.
23. Expedition all off at last moment, so that I got to bed all right and feel considerably better this morning. Nasty snowy day, though. Last night at 10p.m. it was rather a fine scene - white snow on the ground freezing, and a moon that looked as if it had been crumped by a shell.


Andy

24th February, 1916.
Just a line to say my sneefle is fast disappearing. We're just moving to a new rest camp. Had an interesting day yesterday, which will tell you about in the next letter. This is in haste to catch the post.


Andy

25th February, 1916. To His Mother.
It's bitterly cold, freezing hard and our hut is more like a funnel at the N.Pole than a residence - no door, and two holes instead of windows, and a very little coal-dust to make a fire with. We're all in the same boat, more or less, but it doesn't make it any warmer.
The Batt. had a lecture on discipline from an old general to-day - oh, lor, some of these old boys would haul up St. George on his way back from fighting the Dragon in order to rebuke him for having some mud on his armour.


Andy

I'm so glad to see that!! when things are bad - you just have to laugh!!
Good for you Robert!! another little chink in the armour!!

Annie

Saturday, 26th February, 1916.
My cold is much better - going, in fact, as fast as you can expect in this benighted country, which at the moment is under several inches of snow.
We've got a door to our hut, but still no windows so far, so we are still draughty. I ought to have a little more time for the next day or two, as D., who is senior subaltern in the Batt. and belongs to C Coy., has come back from leave and naturally takes over the O.C.ing till T. returns.
The only thing I can think of wanting is a pair of gloves as I've lost that good pair we got. Any sort would do as long as they are very large and woolly or otherwise lined. I use them not so much for warmth as for protecting my hands in the trenches. You pull yourself along like a monkey, and in the dark may lay hold of barbed wire, pointed stakes or sheer mud; or a combination of the same.
We had a lecture in discipline yesterday from a very bigwig - it made me quite sick. I am still altogether up against that aspect of the Army - which I believe to be only a pale imitation of Teutonic methods, and if carried out rigidly, a mistake. However, it's their say and they will have it, or try to have it.
I don't think I told you of my walk with the Acting C.O. and the other O.C.'s to look at some other trenches. It was through a rather less desolate part of the country - sloping and green instead of smashed up mud-holes; and we went near one of the recently captured trenches. Called an old general at one place, and he asked the C.O. if he knew these trenches. The C.O. said yes, the Batt. had been there before; whereupon the Old Thing just roared with laughter and said "Yes, but the Boches have got them all now!"
He was, however, not a bad old one - only cheery - seemed to know about things abd be reasonably optimistic. We came back the last five miles in a six horse artillery limber, and I don't think I've ever been so jolted in my life. It seemed a fairly good cure for colds.


Andy

28th February, 1916.
There's very little news. The snow has all gone and it is steadily sploshing with rain, and we're in the same rest camp as ever, and my cold is much betly but my throat is rather sore - to be truthful - but then so is everybody else's, I think.
I asked you for gloves, didn't I? Two pipes would also oblige. I've just broken the last again. That's the trouble out here.
I'm afraid I can't hold out any hopes of leave for a long time.
March to-morrow, so I suppose winter is thinking of coming to an end. I shan't be sorry. It's very difficult to keep oneself and the men fit in this sort of thing, and there never was a bigger lie than that colds are unknown at the Front. The absence of one is a rarity, I should say.


Andy

1st March, 1916.
I somehow fell asleep this afternoon instead of writing to you, and now there is no time before the post goes.
It is a beautiful day - the first for weeks.
Have just seen a Seaforth Service Batt. go by to the pipes - to the attack I think. Good-looking men. T. is just back.

Andy

1st March,1916.
I sent you off a small snip to catch the post, and now I don't see why I shouldn't start a longer one.
T., who has come back from leave rather ill - cold, I fancy ___ is asleep on my bed, C. reading and not a bad fire in the hut, which is fairly peaceful. When we shall move I don't know - probably suddenly and soon. There are a lot of things in the air, and I wish I could always tell you what little we know and expect; but we mayn't, and anyhow it's just as well, perhaps, as they don't always come off.
I'm rather annoyed about leave and the time it will be before we can even think of it - apart from the chance of it being stopped altogether. I can't help thinking that married men ought to be given preference, because there are two people to be considered; and also, I think it should start at the bottom instead of the top. More decent somehow for a C.O. to see his juniors off before he goes himself, and I don't think this is just because I am a 2nd Lieut. However, it doesn't strike them that wat - quite the contrary - and the men, of course, get much less than the officers. There, the sole excuse is that they are less used to it, makes less good use of it, and so on - in which there is something, though not a great deal. Also, of course, the transport difficulties would crop up. I think myself the answer is that the officers should go less often. One didn't join to get leave.
I 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. There seem to be such people now, and I see numbers of silly books and papers advertised as having nothing to do with the war. Ut's natural, perhaps, that soldiers should want a diversion, and even civilian's; but I rather hope that people won't altogether forget it in our generation. That's what I wanted to say in verse I began about -

Not in our time, O lord, we now beseech Thee
To grant us peace - the sword has bit too deep -

but never got on with it. What I mean is that for us there can be no real forgetting. We have seen too much of it, known too many people's sorrow, felt it too much, to return to an existence in which it has no part. Not that one wants to be morbid about it later; but still less does one want to be as superficial as before. I fancy this comes from hearing ____ say, that the Army will be the place to be when peace is declared - no work, all leave and amusement. I don't think it will be or should be, and I'm sure it's a mistake to suppose that times ahead are going to be gay and easy in any case. The sword has bit too deep. He's only a boy and a very nice one and doesn't mean a quarter of what he says, but I do wish these nice and high spirited youths learned as well as dared.
Every one here seems quite cheerful about Verdun. and rumour says that the French have done very well. It's quite likely I suppose.
Am at present endeavouring to learn the Lewis gun, as we're all supposed to know a little of it. Like all machines, it seems to me very mysterious, though Lindsay would probably know all about it in ten minutes. I think I should be less stupid at knowing good positions to fire it from, which is, I suppose, more the officer's job.
March 2nd. Fine day just turned to rain. Still don't know when we move. Nothing special on.


Andy

The Lindsay referred to in the last letter was Lindsay B. Fry, an engineer and Caroline's brother.

Andy

4th March, 1916. Still Rest Camp
It is the most revolting weather again, snow and hail and rain alternately, and we are very lucky to be out of the trenches. You mustn't picture me suffering hardships, even in the trenches. It's only what you might call discoforts as long as one is well and unwounded, and really this hut has been much better the last two or three days, owing to more fuel.
Why we haven't gone into the trenches is that we are or were in reserve for an attack you probably will have read about. Luckily it was very successful and we didn't have to go up. I told you of the Scots marching up the road to the pipes. They were on their way to it, and the following day they came back - detachments with Boche prisoners - rather picturesque, and very conscious of having done well.
T. was much taken with my fur lining, which I lent him when he retired to my bed; it certainly is very nice and light.
I am just off to try to get a bath at a camp near - haven't had one for about three weeks, and am too dirty for words.

Andy

6th March, 1916. Rest Camp
We go up about two days hence to some different trenches, supposd to be a great improvement - or are rumoured to be so. Have been very lucky to be out during this awful weather. Have been digging drains this morning (physical drill at 7.30!) in the snow and take the men to bathe this afternoon.
We only go into reserve anyhow for some dayd.


Andy

7th March, 1916. Rest Camp
It snowed last night, and wet snow which prevents anything being done, which is one advantage, as the ground is a mass of icy puddles. I hope it will improve before we go into the trenches. I am very well - slight sore throat, but every one has them.
There wasn't any need to worry about that attack which we were not wanted for, as it went exactly as planned.

Andy