B.E.F., Saturday, January 29th.
My darling Mother,—
Do you send any of my letters on to Winnie? or anybody? After work to-day we went into the town to have tea. After tea we met some of our men and gave them some pay, pro. tem., as they have had no pay for two weeks or so and were broke. Then I bought a Pearson's magazine (price 1s.) and we started for home and got a lift on a 3-ton A.S.C. lorry, from which I dropped the magazine, unfortunately. I am billeted in an estaminet by myself, and Bill Fiddian is with two other officers on the same course in another estaminet in a large room with three beds, out of which all the bedrooms open. Grandma groans in one small room, Monsieur and Madame and about two dozen others in another small room and two officers in two other small rooms. Grandma has just gone to bed; she has attained to the small total of 97 years and seems able to look after herself. We have just been having a long talk with Madame, who brought us up our dinner, an omelette and coffee. We have been reading and talking, and on Monday we shall return to the battalion. The big candle you sent me is topping and is lasting for hours. The guns are at it again—they have been busy all day. The Germans were here once, but they are not here now. Since coming out here I have come to be very proud of the battalion. I have seen no battalion with their physique and few with their discipline. They sing a song about the Suffolk boys being respected wherever they go, and I think they are. In comparing them with other men, I have been struck, and so have others, with how fair they are. Most of them have very fair hair, often gold, and fair rosy cheeks. They seem a very Saxon type. I have been wondering whether they are descendents of the Danes and Saxons, who took refuge in the fens in Norman times, a memory of Hereward the Wake. The fen men have always been a separate race; they must have very little Norman blood in their veins. They have the Saxon stolidity also. I am very glad I am not in a town battalion like the Northumberlands and such regiments. They are not nearly so easy to control or so well disciplined, and I am pleased to discern to-day that our men seem much quicker in picking up new ideas, despite the fact that they are not so educated. Well, I am afraid all this is very boring. But, as I have suddenly developed into a writer of letters, I must write either just what comes into my head or nothing at all. It seems funny this long, stretching line of trenches, always busy even in the quietest of times. By daytime guns and shells; by night, bombs, flares, searchlights and machine guns. And a few miles behind it as we are, perfectly safe as if there was no such thing as war, with only the faint noises one notices, now faintly, now clearly, as the wind varies to remind one of the struggle going on. It seems funny to lie in a comfortable bed and watch it all through the window as on a stage. Noises off.
Please send me big candles when you send a parcel. This one is lasting beautifully. Yesterday (Sunday) we fired off the mortar in the morning, and in the afternoon went into the town for dinner. I wanted to go to a Catholic Church in the evening to see what it is like, because, of course, there are no Protestant Churches here.
This afternoon we went to the Theatre of the Division we are attached to. They have a cinematograph and a band, orchestra and concert party, all composed of Tommies. They are at present in what I think must be part of a disused factory, and it was a very good show. I went and one of the other officers on the course, and two of the officers whose battalion we are attached to. Then we had dinner with them in their company mess, and a jolly good dinner, too, and after we talked. It was very interesting, as they have been out over six months continually, and not lost a single officer I think. They had some very amusing yarns. I will tell you sometime.
When I returned to my billet I had an awful business. It was one of the blackest nights I have ever seen. I have never before remembered a night, when you literally could not see your hand six inches before your nose. Last night you could not—I tried. Also the darkness was misty as well, it simply got up and hit you in the face. I started back once—it quite seemed as if someone was striking a blow.
To-day we did one of the most curious and typical things of modern warfare. At 10-30 we went out for a walk—five of us—and our destination was the trenches, just for a few hours' joy ride. We walked about five miles along the road, and then about a mile across open fields. The last mile, of course, was within rifle range of the German trenches, but they could not see you, except from observation posts, and if they could we were too far off to make the shot easy enough to make it worth trying. The only disturbing thing was the behaviour of our own artillery, who suddenly let off a gun, only a few yards from the road on which we were walking, and made a horrid row. The curious thing about this trench warfare is that a trench is such a small thing to hit that the German and our own artillery have given up trying to do any real damage, but they have come to a sort of agreement to keep their faces up and to impress upon the infantry in the trenches that there is some reason for an artilleryman being paid more than the infantry. Accordingly, they plant their wretched guns near a road, and when anyone goes along it they let off a round just to see him jump. The shell probably falls in Holland or in our own lines. Anyway, it does no damage, and the artillery enjoy their little joke all right. It has become almost second nature with them. Of course, the new batteries take some training—they lack humour. One battery let one Brigadier-General, one Colonel and a transport mule go past and each time forgot about loosing off a round. At the end of the cross country jaunt we came across the beginning of the works of the Cave-men. You may have seen some in England—they disguise themselves as earth and then dig long narrow holes and live in them. The Cave-men are strange creatures. We went up one of then funny long narrow burrows, and occasionally they let off a funny toy which cracked overhead. At length we came to the real caves where these men live. I noticed that they were very vain men and were continually looking into a sort of box thing, with a glass at the end, and admiring themselves therein, and then so intoxicated were they with the sight that they would put a stick to their shoulder and break forth into smoke and flame. The name of this people is the Tribe of Tommizi.
And I noticed their gods visited them. Speckless mortals, clothed in fine linen, wearing turbans or caps, as they call them, trimmed with red and gold, and so appalling was their aspect that the Cave-men were, as it were, turned to stone, and stood with their hand to their hats as if to guard against a blow, or to ward off the evil eye. And behold, a terrible dragon screamed across the sky, shouting out with hate and roaring as the thunder, and fell and burst itself asunder, and I fled, and the Cave-men laughed, for their gods in red were there and they feared not. I expect the above gives you a good picture of trench life. It is as given me by a friend of mine who visited these men—my own experiences were different.
My own experiences I will call "An Idyll of Spring" in blank verse, without the blanks and without the verse, and will be continued in our next.