A Broken World: Letters, Diaries and Memories of the Great War

by Sebastian Faulks

  Both will be carefully preserved here, until such time as the Nation shall erect a fitting Valhalla, wherein to commemorate the deeds of our fallen heroes.

  I enclose an Official Letter of thanks, and remain,

  Yours faithfully,

  Keeper of Photographs.

  London

  March 13 1919

  Dear Sir,

  Will you kindly accept my very best thanks for your letter acknowledging our Dear Boys Photo

  Amidst the turmoil these little things go a considerable way towards driving the dark clouds away & I am proud to know that our ‘Sonny’ has a little corner of his own in the Museum

  His mother joins me in thanking you for the lovely sentiments expressed

  Yours faithfully

  Harry Quibell

  JH Sikes & M.A.

  [August 1917]

  Sir

  I noticed in the news that you would like the Photos of Officers and those who have won distinctions, well don’t you think it an insult to our brave lads, who have fought, who have done more than their share in the War and not been promoted, they do quite as much as officers, no doubt more, for instance I am a soldier’s wife, my husband joined in Nov 1914, arrived in France Mar 22nd 1915, went through the July 1st advance on the Somme front and [h]as been wounded on Aug 22nd 1916 and he is still doing his bit, don’t you think it more honourable to have the likes of my husband, if only Pte.

  Yours Mrs Bodman

  Birmingham

  May 31. 1918.

  Sir,

  In yr. letter to the papers re records of dead soldiers. do you mean you want any officer’s record?

  We have lost two dears sons, R. W. Somers-Smith K. R. R.

  & J. R. Somers-Smith L. R. B. M. C.

  do you mean ordinary boys like this – or only very distinguished officers –?

  If so, could you let me know exactly what you want?

  As they were both good [word unclear] do you want to hear about that? or only the military record. I could get a friend of ours, to write it up properly, if I knew exactly what.

  yours faithfully

  M. F. Somers-Smith

  London

  March 8th 1919

  Sir

  I enclose a photo of my late Husband Dennis Murphy. I shall like him to be with others that have helped in this war. He was a good man and the best of Husbands their for I want to do all I can so that he shall not be forgotten. I can quite understand that they cannot all be on show at once, as you have photos of so many dear ones. What sad people and unhappy homes this war [h]as made. I have a baby girl year and two months which is a great comfort to me, but nothing can take the place of one so dear as my Husband

  Yours truely

  Ethel Murphy

  MRS S. E. CHESSUM donated these notes to the Imperial War Museum where they are part of the Bond of Sacrifice Collection. Her son, Clarence Godwin Chessum, was killed in action on March 13 1917. She sends flower seeds to the Front; even if her son does not see them grow, they might, she writes, provide ‘cheer’ to others. The notes are difficult to read. At times she seems to be transcribing the words of her son; at others she is reporting incidents from his life. Memories are written on tiny scraps of paper, and some of them are transcribed here.

  Mr Secretary,

  Dear Sir I have sent some of the incidents of my dear Son’s life have no relics. you may find a use for them. His loss can never be made up. was almost always with us. I had 8 children 4 sons 1. doing N.S. at Admiralty (clerical) 1. 17th Essex Regt just shifting from Weybourne C. 1. here, Munitions and the one killed. Daughters in Australia. we were 9 round the table, now. I am only one, not able to go out, or up long. age 68. 1. Nephew W Dormer has been killed. 1. Gassed. 1 Alfred Dormer been in a great deal of action I think over 2 years. a brother of my Son’s Wife has sent a few coins and little curios. he is in Salonica soon coming home. his Wife died this morning 6 children left. 1 Boy on high seas. excuse me troubling you with all this but it’s life as it is. Yours Respectfully.

  (Mrs) S.E. Chessum.

  Oct. 1917.

  My Dear Son sent me these, he did like so when had read them. He must have felt it. He told me once I’ll never leave you Mother, but did not delay at the call of duty. said I know Mother if you felt it your duty you would not flinch.

  I sent some flower seeds for him to put in somewhere amongst the trees. it maybe some other lonely soldier, will see something of them, & be a voice to him. of Cheers.

  he wrote saying. I have put them in. but do not suppose shall see them grow up. but some other sore head may be cheered.

  Christian Herald.

  July 4. 1918.

  In connection with the War. Visiting the Battlefield of Warlencourt.

  The position held by the German artillery was one calculated to impress us with the heroism and the devotion of our men.

  The memory of the Durhams will be immortal in this connection. and hard-headed Britishers as we all were in the party. It was with dimmed eyes that we turned away from the memorial erected on the mound, and passed on in silence, to view the trenches. on our way back. passed a little well-kept Cemetery. some distance from Albert.

  Copied July 4 1918.

  Clarence Godwin Chessum.

  4.9.7.0.6.14. Durham Light Infantry.

  killed in action

  March 13. 1917.

  A Workman. Bookbinder, but a great lover of nature. His greatest delight when out of Hoxton, where he worked, was to take the children & wife to the country by Riverside.

  […] months in Brighton he got up to have an hour on the end of Peir [sic] before 6 when work began. (was working there) and in the evening went round the country and said what beauty there was to be seen in England, if people would only look up own country first, instead of run[n]ing off to some foreign.

  In Edmonton, belonged to Rifle Club in the evening, practiced and won his cross guns. so he filled up all spare hours wherever happened to be. and kept the best side of the Public H. (outside).

  In the Camp at [word unclear] looked for, and soon found a quiet little spot. none of the others went, but he was so fond of the quiet country, and a River for a swim. (nearly all the year round) he wrote me, he was never tired of hearing the water running over the Stones.

  there was young cattle grazeing there. used to stand round looking at him writing. once he just found one starting to eat his Handkerchief, he had hung to dry after his swim. (his only towel) he drove them off, but they did not go far. then stood looking. they have beautiful eyes.

  One day he had laid thinking of us all no doubt. then a voice at his side said, would you like a cup of tea? (what a treat,) did not know any one was near even. that was the best ever was. when he took the cup back. he found the Captain was not far off. had a Picnic. he said did it go down good.? My boys grateful face, and smile told. as he said yes. so then he was handed some biscuits we never forgot it here at home.

  Once another thing he enjoyed there. in that quiet spot. some nice little cakes made by Mrs Rose. after the tea was over the cakes left were sold. I had some, and just came right, as he was starting

  […] he could to all the [paper ripped here; missing words] he could. The poor little ones, knew [the words ‘Biscuits’ and ‘Fruit’ are written above and below ‘knew’] from when he was having a frugal meal. sitting in St Sepulchres churchyard, used to like to go there, rather than a closely packed room. (having Dinner). away on Holiday took a poor ragged boy about with him, all day, in the country. to the boys delight. went in to Sea together was pleased [to] make the Boy happy.

  CHARLES ROYSTON JONES was a private with the 1/15th Battalion London Regiment, who was killed in the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916. In 1920 Charles’s parents, Charles and Amelia Jones, took a pilgrimage to the battlefields. The fragments below are taken from a notebook they made about their son which included letters, newspaper cuttings, poems, maps, and a description of their tour.

  The Last Letter


  Sun 10 Sept (On the Move)

  France

  Rec Wed 13 Sept

  Dear Father

  Just a few lines to let you know I am quite in the ‘pink’ & to thank you for your last long letter, which I enjoyed very much. I have received everything sent including the last parcel (the contents tell mother were quite all right & had not been damaged).

  When there is anything serious, I shall write every two days or so. We are at present out of the line. The books you sent were very enjoyable. Please thank my sister for the photograph sent – I am writing separately when I have time.

  Hoping you are very well

  Yours sincerely

  Roy

  P. S. I want some safety rasor [sic] blades as soon as poss, as I have run out of them. Also a new shirt. Many thanks by the way for all the attention to my ‘wants’ which you have given. I really can’t thank you enough & I am indeed very grateful.

  Please give my love to Mother.

  (In answer letter was sent with 5 Fc Note 13/9/16)

  Field Service Post-Cards. (The Somme)

  Tuesday Sept 12.

  Received Friday

  I am quite well. I have received your letter dated 3.9.16

  Letter follows at first opportunity.

  Royston Jones

  The Last Card

  Thursday Sept 14th

  Rec Mon Sept 18th

  (The Somme)

  I am quite well. I have received your letters of the 8th of September.

  Letter follows at first opportunity.

  Roy

  (Birthday Parcels were sent as follows)

  Mother’s 15/9/16

  Father’s 18/9/16 Birthday Card & 5 Fcs on 19/9

  Millicent’s 19/9/16

  Lillian 20/9/16

  The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,

  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

  Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

  Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

  (Omar Khayyam)

  ‘A Cloud, a Mist, and a blinding Rain

  And the World was never the same again’

  ‘And the stately ships go on

  To their haven under the hill,

  But O for the touch of a vanished hand

  And the sound of a voice that is still!’

  [Newspaper cutting]

  No. 3638, Pte. C. ROYSTON JONES, London Regt., who has been killed in action, was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Jones, of Stoke Newington. He volunteered from the Civil Service early in 1915, and went to the front in October of the same year. He saw a good deal of fighting and had some narrow escapes until September 15, when he was killed in taking a German trench. His sergeant of platoon writes: ‘I knew him as a keen and willing soldier, and a true friend. His musical gifts charmed and brightened us all when away from the “line”. It was a glorious end to the beautiful life of one loved and respected by us all.’

  Many enquiries were made and letters from comrades were received, with regard to the last scenes. It seems that after getting through High Wood, the battalion pushed on to Flers.

  On the morning of the 19th No 2 Platoon were holding a communication trench which had previously been held by the Germans and that stretched away partly to the new German lines.

  They were due to be relieved the same day. But the Germans made a surprise attack at dawn and they were unable to escape & a number of them were cut off & shot down in getting away. Some of them feigned death whilst on the ground & were fired at whilst they lay there. Amongst these seems to have been our own poor dear boy.

  His small pay book was found & seen by us at the A. P. D. It was soaked & stained with blood & wet. (It rained a great deal about the time of the battle.)

  He makes a note that he had been [word unclear] on 16/6/16, and the last payment was 10 francs on August 28th. He had evidently fallen on his left side and laid there for some time, as his pay book had been in the left side pocket & his sword bayonet handle had made a deep impression right into the covers of the book evidently by the weight of his body being on it & pressing it in. He probably lay in the open till after the regiment was relieved, (for they retook the lost ground) & was buried by a party of the battalion that took the ground over. This was either the Northumberlands or the Durhams.

  […]

  ‘Requiem.’

  Favourite lines of Roy’s by R. L. S[tevenson]

  Under the wide and starry sky

  Dig the grave and let me lie;

  Glad did I live and gladly die,

  And I laid me down with a will.

  This be the verse you grave for me.

  ‘Here he lies where he wished to be,

  Home is the sailor, home from the sea

  And the hunter home from the hill.’

  […]

  We had now traversed the triangle Bapaume, Albert, Peronne. Bapaume which encloses the Battlefields of the Somme in which the British had half a million casualties & lost some of the noblest boys she ever produced. After the battle Sept 15.16 Roy may have looked over from outside High Wood & seen the villages on this very road I had just passed through. We continued our journey to Arras. Night was falling & through the mists & shadows one fancied they could he[a]r the tramp-tramp tramp of ghostly feet & see again as in a vision the loved faces of those heroic boys of ours, whom we had loved & lost, and who had made such an awful sacrifice for us. We would have been happy indeed if we could have saved them by our sacrifice but alas! The Fates ruled otherwise – Vale & Farewell

  C. A. J.

  8/8/20

  R. E. ROLLER found three railway tickets to towns in German possession in 1916, in the ruins of Ypres Station. He mounted and framed these tickets and sent them to his uncle. The following letter was glued to the back.

  Dec 21st 1918.

  Dear Uncle Arthur

  When I was with my battery at Ypres in Belgium in the beginning of 1916, I happened one day to be passing near Ypres Station, which was a spot always to be avoided owing to the barrage which the Huns put down pretty well continually; if not on the station itself very near to it; and I thought I would go and have a look at the station, of course there was very little semblance of a station left but I managed to discover the remains of the booking office, where after a good deal of scrummaging round I found three return tickets to different towns all of them bearing on the War and also occupied by the enemy then, these tickets I kept out of curiosity and now this year I have had them roughly mounted in a frame and am sending them to you as a Xmas present, their intrinsic value is of course nil, but thought you might like to have them from an interesting point of view as they are not the usual kind of ‘souvenir’ one sees and get[s] so tired of.

  Also getting them very nearly cost me a broken leg as while I was in what remained of the booking office, the Germans started their usual barrage quite near and the concussion of one of the explosions brought down one of the heavy beams from above me falling just behind the spot where I was kneeling missing my extended leg by about six inches which was rather a close shave.

  The tickets are extremely dirty but have not had them cleaned as that is the condition in which I found them.

  WILLIAM HATCHELL BOYD was born at Clonliffe, Dublin on 30 September 1887. He worked as an accountant until he entered the army in 1915. He became a 2nd lieutenant in the 5th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He contributed to military attempts to suppress the Sinn Féin rebellion in April 1916 and the following July went to France. On 9 September he was killed by a shell during the capture of Ginchy. The newspaper cutting below commemorates Lieutenant Thomas Kettle; William Hatchell Boyd’s death is relegated to a sentence. It first appeared in the Dublin Freeman’s Journal on October 23 1916, and was written by a ‘Dublin Officer’. The cutting was sent to the Imperial War Museum, along with a short biography; the donors underlined the lines relating to Boyd.

  Second Lieutenant James Emmet Dalton, of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who has been awarded the Milita
ry Cross for conspicuous bravery in the field, is the son of Mr. J. F. Dalton, who is well-known in Dublin Nationalist and Commercial circles. He is only 18 years of age, and joined the army in January last. He arrived in France on the 1st September, and at once went into the firing line. He was awarded the Military Cross for the following, according to the official record:

  At the capture of Ginchy, on the 9th September, 1916, bravery and leadership in action; when owing to the loss of officers the men of two companies were left without leaders he took command and led these companies to their final objective. After the withdrawal of the 47th Brigade and the right flank of his battalion was in the rear he carried out the protection of the flank, under intense fire, by the employment of machine guns in selected commanding and successive positions. After dark, whilst going about supervising the consolidation of the position, he, with only one sergeant escorting, found himself confronted by a party of the enemy consisting of one officer and 20 men. By his prompt determination the party were overawed and, after a few shots, threw up their arms and surrendered.

  In a number of letters written to his parents and breathing a fine Christian spirit, the young officer speaks very modestly of his brave deed, and says that in the war he is fighting for Ireland. In one of these communications he describes the death of Lieutenant Thomas Kettle.

  BOOK ON THE IRISH DIVISION

  ‘Between the 2nd and 5th October,’ he wrote, ‘I spent some pleasant hours with Lieutenant Kettle. He was writing a book about the war and the Irish Division, namely, the 16th: On the night of the 5th we marched for three hours in terrible rain on an awfully uneven road until we came to “Trones Wood”, which is opposite Guillemont. On the morning of the 7th we lost 200 men and seven officers at Guillemont by the Boch shell fire. We returned to Trones Wood and Tom took over command of “B” Company, whilst I became second in command of “A” Company.

  ‘During the morning of the 8th Tom and I were discussing the losses we had sustained when an orderly arrived with a note for each of us saying “Be in readiness, Battalion will take up A and B position in front of Ginchy tonight at 12 midnight.”

  ‘I was with Tom when he advanced to the position that night, and the stench of the dead that covered our road was so awful that we both used some foot powder on our faces. When we reached our objective we dug ourselves in, and then, at 5 o’clock p.m. on the 9th, we attacked Ginchy. I was just behind Tom when we went over the top. He was in a bent position, and a bullet got over a steel waistcoat that he wore and entered his heart. Well, he only lasted about one minute, and he had my crucifix in his hands… Then Boyd took all the papers and things out of Tom’s pockets in order to keep them for Mrs. Kettle, but poor Boyd was blown to atoms in a few minutes. The Welsh Guards buried Mr. Kettle’s remains. Tom’s death has been a big blow to the regiment, and I am afraid that I could not put in words my feelings on the subject.’