War Letters of a Public-School Boy

by Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

Life continues to use me well, though in the last week or two I have been all-ends up with work. I have usually managed to keep fairly dry, but the weather is awful, and despite mackintoshes and greatcoats galore, I have been absolutely soaked on more than one occasion, especially one night about four days back, when I had to sleep in the open on a heath in pouring rain, and with a bitter wind blowing. However, one thinks but little of that sort of thing when campaigning, and I have never been better in health.

I wish I could describe to you some of the scenes I witnessed during the past week, above all, on that never-to-be-forgotten day before the great attack was made. We found ourselves moving along the same road as the Guards—Grenadiers, Scots, and Welsh—who were going up to the attack (the Welsh Guards had never been in action before, having only recently been constituted, but I hear they did great things). Never had I seen such a sight as that evening before the attack. On one side of the road our cavalry, on the other the Guardsmen, all moving forward to the accompaniment of the sound of guns booming sullenly ahead. We halted for a time beside a detachment of Life Guards, among whom I recognised an old Alleynian named Kemp, whom I had not seen since last October. We had a few minutes' pleasant conversation before passing on with our respective columns.

A day or two ago I was to have gone right up to the battlefield with supplies, but a sudden change in orders made it impossible. However, a number of our lot were up there. They tell me it was a fearful scene—the ground littered with corpses, and all the débris of a battlefield scattered around. I was bitterly disappointed at not getting right up, but duty is duty, and I had orders to do other things. We all hope that the day of the great move forward has now begun to dawn, but there's no doubt it will be a devil of a job, as the Boches are fighting like hell to regain the lost ground. All yesterday, last night and this morning the guns have been rumbling away with more than usual vigour.

One day last week I visited a soldiers' cemetery; it was chiefly used for men who have died of wounds at a casualty clearing station near by. A most mournful and yet most impressive spectacle it was. As I returned I saw long strings of ambulances coming down from the Front—a sight that spoke eloquently of the toll that this war is taking of our best. I note you say that the new Welsh Division will be going out presently, either to France or to the Dardanelles. I hope that they will prove worthy of the great name that the Welsh have made for themselves in this war. Yesterday I chatted with a Welshman from Pontypridd, a Regular in the First South Wales Borderers. He had been out here right from the very start, had been twice wounded, and, except for one convalescent period of a fortnight, had had no leave at all. Chris Fowkes, who was wounded some time back, was in the same company as this sturdy Welshman.[1]

October 6th, 1915.

The general impression here now is that the advance is proving a very tough proposition. The casualty list is of colossal dimensions. All the signs point to a long war.

A French interpreter is attached to each battalion of British infantry, or regiment of cavalry, with a liaison officer, or interpreter officer, attached to each brigade in addition. Personally, I have never found any need for an interpreter's services. I am able to make almost any of my requirements comprehensible to the inhabitants, and I think I may describe myself as being really fluent in French by this time. It is perfectly amazing how few of our people can talk any other language than their own.

That was a piquant incident at the College as described by Hal. A little dash of unconventionality like that is wanted in Dulwich and in all Public Schools. They, like other national institutions, are terribly prone to get into a groove. Though that groove be a good one, yet an occasional lift out of it can do no harm. But there's no doubt about it that, conservative though they may be, our Public Schools have done marvellously in this war. The system has proved its value ten thousand times over, and never so much as on these gory plains of Flanders and the hilly crags of Gallipoli. Of late the officer casualties have been fearful, and most of them these days seem to be killed, not wounded.

So Bulgaria seems determined to come in against us. If this means that Roumania and Greece join us, I don't see why the Germans should be so keen on enlisting the Bulgars on their side. Funny, isn't it, how all Europe is falling into the whirlpool of war? Every one of the little States finds that the war is a chance for it to get something out of someone else—hence its decision to join in. I hope our Government won't go sending big forces out to Albania or Salonika, or such places, unless and until they are sure it would be to England's benefit. For the life of me, I can't see why we should carry these footling little nations on our shoulders. All they do is to turn on you as soon as your back is turned, as vide the Bulgars themselves. The end of it all is that everyone is scrapping against someone else for some selfish aim, and the main object and high ideals for which we entered the war are wholly forgotten.

I cannot describe to you the muddy conditions out here. Mud lies inches thick on the roads, and is kept damp and slimy by the continual passage of limbers, horses, guns, wagons and lorries—the final result being a veritable swamp. The other day a man of the 19th Hussars was watering two horses when he got himself and the two animals hopelessly bogged beside the pond in a swamp which he mistook for dry ground. Eventually we tugged him and the two horses out with ropes. They were all soaked with slime and mud from head to foot. As for the infantrymen, when they come out of the trenches, they are caked in mud all over. In these parts mud is the great feature of the war.