Letters of an English Boy

Excerpt:

In Bed, — Dump, January 10.

I have heard nothing of anybody since Sunday and have seen no papers for a week.

The day before yesterday I had to go up to visit a forward soup kitchen at [Contalmaison] or where that place was when it was a village. The kitchen was just behind the trenches and there I found the —th Royal Scots of which Battn. Cappell is the Padre so I found out where he was and went to see him to-day. He was in bed sick and looking bad, but says he is going to England to-morrow with any luck. He has promised to write to you, and as my division is relieving his, he will know everything about where we shall be, where i now am and what I am doing so you will get first hand information of my doings and movements. I sent my servant down to him this afternoon with the nose of a German shell we got. It is rather a fine souvenir and it will make an inkstand I think. He promised to take it home to Dyonese for me and also a ' tin hat ' if he can carry it, but unless his servant goes with him he will be too heavily laden.

However let me know if the shell nose arrives because it is worth keeping and I picked it up on a field that will be always famous. There are any amount of things lying about here Boche and English only they are too heavy to get home and some too unpleasant. There are some very gruesome things lying around, and it doesn't do to poke about too much I can assure you.

Well—we are winning this war all right. To give you an instance. As I just said, I went up to visit this soup kitchen and on my way back Fritz put over 6 shells between me and home. In a moment or two the whole world belched out flame (it was just dusk) and for that 6 he got about 600 back. God knows what they are going through because they have not had time to build the deep dug-outs they so love and our guns never stop. I think their nerves will go in under a month—a man can't stand it. Prisoners are always coming in to give themselves up and they sometimes get right through our lines and right back here without knowing where they are. That is why my servant and I share this dugout to be ready for any unwelcome visitors.

But nothing wakes me. This morning about 8 o'ck. we had a strafe. Morris in the Fusiliers who is doing this job too came in about 10 o'ck. and said, well that wasn't too bad was it ? I asked what he meant, and he asked what I was doing at 8 a.m. I said I was asleep, and he was astounded that I had slept through it all with a —" gun outside my door. He doesn't know what I am like in the morning. I think you must show this to Moon it will amuse her! We are shockingly badly off for drink. It is always tea at every meal and full of sand at that. My servant is perfectly splendid. He has been out since August 1914 and looks after me just like Harry would. Never lets me go anywhere alone. He wants some socks so will you send as many as you can possibly lay hands on, any number at all because they are everything. We wear these long boots which the Army call 'gum boots, thigh' and they arc very good but make your feet hot and the socks are wet when you get them off.

I have got a deaf cat that I found in a dugout, so that keeps off the rats. That and one hawk are the only living animals besides rats and horses that I have seen here that are fools enough to stay ! You can't distinguish any landmarks here at all. It is rather like one enormous rabbit warren, no green stuff showing at all. Where the villages have been there are broken stumps of trees for as you know there are only trees round villages in this part of France. I hate to see the remains of trees all smashed to pulp and burnt. I saw to-day a mound labelled —— Church. That was all to show that people had once lived there. The peasants are wanting to come back again. I can't think what they will do and I guess they will have a pretty jumpy time when they start ploughing as the ground bristles with duds (unexploded shells).

Well Cappell will write and tell you more than I can write. Get a Daily Mail airman's map of the district like the one of the Ypres section and you will be able to see exactly where I am. I do wish you and Harry could come here and look for treasures for the ' Depot.' There are some fine ones lying round. I often see some particularly fine object of art and think how priceless it would be up at the Cresswell.

My conception of the value of things has undergone rather a change, some dry firewood or an iron sheet for the roof now to my mind outvalues that Queen Victoria black penny stamp I used to admire so much, and so on. I can't find out whether I am here permanently or whether I rejoin my Battn. when they come up. However I will let you know. I am afraid this is not exactly an exciting letter, but no doubt you will be glad to have it. It is a scrawl but it is difficult to write under the circumstances. I am feeling extremely well and quite enjoying life.
 

The Abomination of Desolation.

Jan. 13, 1917.

Your last letter will be very late I am afraid as it only went off this morning. We have to send letters to the Divisional HeadQs. and they go by the runner, and unless there are despatches to be taken he can't make a special journey. Well, it has been raining as usual to-day. This morning it snowed, but I am glad to say it has stopped. We had a busy day yesterday getting two Battns. fitted out with gum boots on their way up to the line. We have been rather wretched lately because yesterday no rations came up, and to-day only ½ quantity—result nothing to eat and no candles. I managed to buy a candle for a franc from a Scotchman in the road so we have a light as long as that lasts.. We have lived lately on bully beef, and tea without sugar and milk. The man who acts as cook is a Figian, of 55. He likes his tea to brew for about 4 hours after it is ready to drink. T think he was employed as a poisoner in the Antipodes before he came out here. However he does his best and he only has the lid of a dixi to do all his cooking in.

I was thinking this evening as I walked back from [Contalmaison] in the reserve line how astonished you would be if you could see this
place. You would never believe me if I tried to describe it or at least if I could describe it.

What I think it is most like is the most depressing view in the ' Black Country' that you can find. Take away all buildings and for cinders put brown earth all churned up into millions of shell holes and smashed trenches. Cover the whole with thick mud - fill all depressions with water, scatter round thousands of empty beef tins ,broken rifles, braziers, cart limbers, etc. pieces of men's clothing, boots and equipment and add a continuous roar of guns—there mustn't be a tree, a house or a bird in the scene, but just as far as you can see all round rolling mud covered with debris—well, you can't imagine now what it is like, but I can tell you it is horrible.

I found a little dog a day or two ago and brought it to my dug-out. I called it 'Poz' after this delectable place but to-day it has gone. I am afraid my servant has driven it away as he said it spoilt the new sawdust he had put down on the floor. ' Poz ' never minded the shells but he was frightened at the mud. The Battn. is still marching up. When they arrive I shall rejoin them I expect. Well, the candle is going out and I shall only just have time to wash in the steel helmet which I am using as a wash basin—and it makes a very good one, before darkness will be upon me. It is only 7.30 P.M.

O/C Divisional Co., 2nd Div., B.E.F.

Jan. 15, 1917.

Well as you see I have changed again. To start at the beginning. I was sent up to [Poziere] with men for gum boot stores with orders to return to the Battn. when I had handed the draft over.

The reason why I was sent was because it was Sunday morning. I had got up early to go to an early service and was the only person in the mess when the Adjutant came in. I got the draft up and was told to wait there for the Battn. I just helped with the gum boots etc. and yesterday was told to report to the Divisional Headquarters. Then they asked me to take over the command of the Divisional Company. I said I thought I ought to be with my Battn. but the Staff Colonel said it wasn't anything to do with what I wanted and I must take this job. He said it means very hard work and ' if you can manage it will be a feather in your cap.' Of course I don't have to go to the trenches and gain in that way but I don't like leaving the Battn. I have got a good sergeant-major and quartermaster Sergeant and so ought to do all right. As far as I can make out it isn't half a bad job as I get a horse to myself and a groom and my servant and orderly and am more or less on my own. I am now in a village [Aveluy] farther back a bit than [Poziere] in fact though it is very much knocked about one can tell it is a village. I mess with what is called the Divisional Company mess composed of the Salvage officer, A.P.M., Burials officer and transport officer for the Division. I think I have got a job that belongs to a much more experienced man but as I happened to be on the spot they caught me. It will be a good experience no doubt if I can manage it. We are in a derelict house in this village. It is the only one that is anything like whole which is very extraordinary. It is far less depressing and gruesome than where I was and the messing is quite good.

(Finished at breakfast, 16/1/17.)

They are ragging me now because the Germans shelled again in the night and I slept through everything. My deep slumbers are proving very useful here. The night before last when we were up in our dug-out at [Poziere] I was woken up by rats, enormous things. They tore my magazine to pieces and walked on my bed . . .