For Love and Courage

by E. W. Hermon

  5th February 1916 – No. 59 answering 56 – Lillers

  Well we finished today about 2 p.m. some twelve miles from here & Cecil went back to the Corps and we rode back here and tomorrow I go back to Drouvin.

  I had a few minutes at midday at Estrée-Blanche & wandered into the church just to see it & I was very much interested to see two kids, just about Betty’s size come in & dip their fingers in the holy water & then go and say prayers. It seemed so odd these two kiddies all alone coming in like that. They seemed hugely amused at my being there & treated it as a great joke!

  I am sorry to hear that Nurse is seedy & my poor little Mairky too. I should be inclined to risk Quick giving the kids the measles even if you let him take Bob alone but I wouldn’t break into Bob’s time if you could help it & after all there would be something in his getting Measles over in his own home tho’ a bore for you!!

  The grey pony carried me like a bird the last time I rode him so it may pass off. I think Harry had been giving him too many oats. My dear old girl, stimulated by your letter tonight I was strong enough to manage a second half-dozen oysters. They come up fresh from the sea every Friday!! so today they were fine.

  My love to you my old darling.

  6th February 1916 – No. 60 answering 57 – Château Drouvin

  Today we had a circular confidential letter written by a senior officer who was taking a very active part in the evacuation of the Gallipoli peninsula, one of the most interesting letters I ever read & the way in which it was carried out was magnificent & reflects the very greatest credit on the staff. I wish I could have copied it & sent it to you or could tell you some more about it but I can’t. There is no doubt that we can carry out a retirement with any nation in the world. We are so good that I believe if we were only to face our line the opposite way & retire before a flagged enemy we should have the Huns across the Rhine before you could say Jack Robinson!!

  I have got a most extraordinary man in this squadron called Brennan, one of the finest types of Australian, about six foot three & weighing about fifteen stone. He went up to relieve some of my first party of snipers the other day. He has apparently had some family trouble lately & tho’ he has lots of relations in New Zealand & is by the bye a New Zealander & not Australian he won’t give in the names of any next of kin. Well, I think he is just a bit touched & have an idea that he wants to get shot but of course it is only an idea. Anyhow he had had a day’s sniping and hadn’t done much good in his own estimation so he crawled out along a gap one day this week till he was within 30 yards of the German line – then he stood bolt upright in broad daylight in full view of the Huns & waited. This so flabbergasted the Hun that two of them stood up too & looked at him & he drew his revolver quickly & shot one of them dead!! Not a bad effort these times tho’ risky when one thinks of the number of snipers he had against him. Of course if he goes on like that he will be killed for a certainty but it was really rather a fine effort & a damned good shot.

  I liked Mrs Macaulay’s letter very much & it would be very nice if you could get her to come & stay with you later on.

  I am so glad to hear that Ken is getting on so well & that he seems to have a fund of humour & enjoys life, & am more than glad to hear that La Vache still holds out its capital, keep it up!! He is nearly three months old now & I should love to see the little beggar again.

  You know it is wonderful how out here you see the contrasts of life. There in Lillers you find war bringing prosperity to a little pub like that of such an immensity as to be beyond their wildest dreams in times of peace. Then, if they had half a dozen townsfolk in in the day it was quite an event & now they have an average forty or fifty officers in for dinner or drinks every evening and only 15 miles away I brought out of Loos a woman who kept an ‘estaminet’ three times the size who probably did ten times the business in normal times & she had what she could carry left of the whole of her worldly possessions & her ‘estaminet’ with its entire contents was a heap of bricks!

  My very best love to you old darling & to the kids & please thank Meggie for her most touching postcard.

  7th February 1916 – No. 61 – Château Drouvin

  I went over to the Corps this morning but only to find all my friends flown. As I told you before my chief friend had gone elsewhere & now I find he has dragged off my other friend with him. Then I went down to the Div. & had a very pleasant half hour with G.S.O.1. Were we together I could tell you a lot but not on paper, thank you. I am not going to take another Div. Cavalry Class for a bit as I am going to do some Training with the Squadron and cyclists in combination and I asked the Corps not to take me away just now as I wanted to be able to devote myself to my command.

  Barber has turned up again tonight having been away from the Squadron since Dec. 20th & I am glad to say that his claim (i.e. having a very pretty sister) has not been strong enough to get him a staff appointment. It was so far as I know his only recommendation. However I am very glad to get him back again.

  10th February 1916 – No. 64 answering 59, 60 & 61 – Château Drouvin

  In such intervals as I can spare from mopping my eyes and blowing my nose I will try & answer your three lovely letters. I don’t remember ever having streamed at eyes & nose as I have today & yesterday. I’ve got a damnable sore throat too. I have hardly done anything today but sit over the fire. I did go & wander round the stables for a few minutes this morning.

  Sergt Heath comes back on Friday. He was hit by a bit of shell just in front of his ear & it was very lucky it didn’t break his jaw. I went & saw him in hospital. It was the first time I had been into one of these hospitals. They are not very cheery shops, one poor bloke was terribly knocked about, never be very much good I am afraid. My love to you old darling.

  Ever your red-eyed, sore-nosed Robert.

  11th February 1916 – No. 65 answering 62 – Château Drouvin

  I have just written the Governor a long letter. He wrote to me saying that Mimi had been to Eton & had seen the Head and evidently with the idea of breaking the news to me that he was to be left at Eton another term. I have never heard that Dick has ever once expressed himself as anxious to come out here. Damn it if he would run away from Eton & enlist it would be something but he hasn’t got the guts. Now Mac’s brother who was 17 last November has come all the way from Australia to do his bit & here is Dick six months older & has no idea above a ferret, tho’ there’s man’s work to be done. I only pray that if we are at such a crisis when Bob is his age that he will see his duty a bit plainer.

  I am much better today tho’ of course my throat hasn’t by any means gone yet.

  Well dearie I’m for bed & a good soak for my toes.

  13th February 1916 – No. 67 answering 64 – Château Drouvin

  This morning I got a letter asking for recommendations for the ‘G’ side of the staff so I wrote a line to Burnett-Hitchcock asking him to get the G.O.C. to consider my name with any others as I couldn’t very well recommend myself! I enclose you his answer. Of course if I was to get the offer of a job on the ‘Q’ side I should have to take it tho’ it isn’t the side I want, but there is no doubt that the ‘G’ side are wanted & I feel my bent lies on that side rather than in the ‘jug & bottle’ department. However, we shall see what we shall see, but do not set too much store by it as very likely another year will see me still plodding along with the same old squadron.

  Old Winnie was lucky to have got out, but my dear old girl you wouldn’t have been allowed to come so don’t get any false ideas in your little pate please. I don’t think your joke about Egypt is at all nice & to tell you the truth it took me a long time to see it & then it flashed on me all of a sudden. You see I forget these things so quickly & warnings & frights become things of the past!

  My love to you my darling.

  15th February 1916 – Hurionville

  I am writing now where I wrote you my No. 4 I think, if I am not wrong.4 Two months ago & yet it seems ages away now & almost as if it belonged to ano
ther life.

  It has been the most awful day in a way, blowing a hurricane. When I was called at 5.30 it was blowing and raining fit to burst itself, but by 8.30 the rain had cleared & it was fine but ‘strong hard’ wind & now it is raining hard & blowing v. hard from N.W. Not at all the sort of a night I should care to be at sea. Very dark too.

  My love to you all dearie mine & I simply long for you tonight my own dearie. Would to God this damned war was over & we were together to pursue the even tenor of our ways with the little Chugs once more.

  18th February 1916 – No. 72 answering 66 Vol. II and 68 – Hurionville

  I simply can’t get rid of my cold somehow & tho’ it doesn’t in the least inconvenience me it is a damned nuisance. The medicine I got from the hospital is awful muck & tastes like beer & sulphur. I don’t at all know what is in the box at S’hampton unless it is drawers & vests for the men sent by Stamfordham.5

  Couldn’t you manage to give Ken an extra bottle in the night now? I am so glad to hear that your Ma seems so well & I hope she will mend a lot under the balmy influence of Brook Hill. Grandpapa tells me that ‘Bet’ proved a very good companion to him in his walks!!

  Sergt Heath is back again now I am glad to say alright. I am afraid tho’ that one of my cyclist lads is dying. He got very badly hit in the thigh, too high for amputation & now gangrene has set in & he is a gonner I fear – a boy called Carpenter. I have had four platoons of cyclists in the trenches this time and this boy got hit patrolling between the lines. Part of his prismatic compass got shot into his thighbone up high.

  I am glad to hear that Ken takes after ‘Pa’.

  My love to you my old darling.

  19th February 1916 – No. 73 answering your 69 – Hurionville

  I found your letter waiting for me when I got back and it was as usual more than welcome. Darling mine, I am more than glad that you are going to do a bit of work on the land. The whole day today as I rode along I saw women working in the fields. Here you see women in charge of the farm carts, they drive them out to the beetroot ‘piles’, load the carts & bring in the beet. They plough & so do the boys. I saw a boy, certainly no more than 12 years old, ploughing in a field with no one to supervise & doing a full day’s work too. Every man of military age here is with his regiment & in the villages there is absolutely no one except old men & women. By the look of the country you wouldn’t know that times were not normal, and I am prepared to bet that there is as big a yield this year, seasons being equal, as there has been in the past.

  The women’s work is beyond all praise and when one thinks of the number of girls there are at home showing themselves in their best clothes on a Sunday & too proud to do a handstroke of work in the week from fear of ‘lowering themselves’ it fairly makes one’s blood boil. They say ‘Who looks after the children?’ Well anything of 12 years, boy or girl, is working in the fields. The rest are at school. Three miles behind the trenches the daily schools are at work even tho’ within the shelling area. The children are being looked after and the work is being done. If you want to, read them this at the meeting & tell them from me that far from minding, the men will respect the women all the more when they know they are turning to, to help to bring the show to an end.

  Nothing will stop the war but the united efforts of man, woman & child each working, not in its own sphere only but also where its work can be most felt. If women are needed in the fields then it’s their solemn duty to go & work there, whatever their inclination is & if they’ve got any guts they will do it. How can it hurt Ken for you to go & work? There are lots of nursing mothers working here.

  I saw two girls spreading muck the other day here & doing it real well too & they couldn’t either of them have been much more than 16 or 18. It’s a pity they can’t send out batches of women here, as they do labour members, to see what is going on & then they could go back & tell the folk at home.

  My love to you old darling.

  20th February 1916 – No. 74 answering your 70 – Hurionville

  A damned Hun aeroplane had the lip to come & drop some bombs here last night. One fell close to my comfy billet of the course & dropped into a family bedroom & rather made a mess of the family but as usual served no useful military purpose & killed a poor man & his wife & child. It’s a dirty trick this bomb-dropping unless confined to military centres tho’ I suppose it is possible to call this place that!!

  The marmalade is not quite right old dear I am sorry to say. Do you remember you had to put in an extra pint of water last year or something of the sort. Anyhow it isn’t as good as it used to be by a long way. I am glad you recognize that one’s womenfolk are out of place in war. I will come home & see you when I can but you can’t come here I am afraid.

  Goodnight my dear, dear love.

  21st February 1916 – No. 75 answering 71 & Bob, Bet & Mairky – Hurionville

  Your nice letter to cheer me on my return from a long field day today. I am mending alright I am glad to say.

  I quite realize that the Chugs are luxuries and expensive but a leopard cannot change his spots & I have been brought up never to study expense & am by an extravagant sire & out of a still more extravagant dam!! Nothing less than two or three substitutes is any good now! Perhaps it would have been better had the squadron gone to Egypt after all.

  I had a letter from Mimi today breaking the news to me that Dick is to remain at Eton until the end of the Summer half. What they can’t see is that he is now 18, hasn’t got a colour, & is doing no earthly good either to himself or anyone else where he is.

  There has been tremendously heavy artillery fire today, the old Hun is getting very barbery these times. Barber’s sister is still working I think & it has resulted in his being dragged off to the trenches for a further period of probationary training with the result that I have lost his services for six weeks already & am still to lose him for a further period of ten days. However such is the fortune of war. What is worrying me is that if he does go I shall get a captain from another squadron and old Mac won’t get 2nd-in-command & he is so awfully good that I should hate to have someone else over him.

  I hear that the wounded cyclist is just making headway & they think there may be a glimmer of hope but they can’t move him yet even in the hospital barges on the canal, by which means all the very worst cases are taken down to the base.

  I must go to bed now old dear, my very best love to you all.

  22nd February 1916 – No. 76 answering 72 (correct!) – Hurionville

  We have got really heavy snow today & the conditions are really beastly & it is snowing hard now. Poor old Steve is on a field day miles away with the infantry & I really don’t know how they will get back again unless they walk & lead their horses.

  I can’t help being amused at old Barber as his sister’s machinations have so far resulted is his being sent up to the trenches when there was the heaviest bombardment on that there has been since Loos, & that was yesterday when he went & today there is at least 3 inches of snow & it’s still falling very hard.

  My darling old girl you really mustn’t get blued old dear because things will come right in the end, tho’ it’s a long way off I fear but it may end sooner than any of us expect.

  Perhaps when the war is over old dear, things won’t be so bad as we expect & perhaps they will be better than they were before, not so artificial & a little more sincerity in life & that will be no harm.

  Good luck to you & keep smiling.

  23rd February 1916 – No. 77 answering 73 – Hurionville

  Hard frost last night & more snow today & freezing like Hades now. Couldn’t do anything today but curse the weather. I did a bit of shooting with the cyclists this morning but got stopped by snow half way through.

  If the Gaisford man was buried at Loos I don’t think I shall bother about going to see his grave as I mightn’t come back. If however he is buried anywhere else where one can go in reasonable safety I will, but Loos is far from being a haven of rest just now, & for tha
t matter it never has been since I knew it. They tell me that it is now nothing more than a succession of footpaths between piles of bricks, & that there isn’t a house left, hardly.

  He isn’t buried at the Château6 if he was killed at Loos, unless his Division was opposite Festubert during the Loos fighting. If she knows where he was buried I will let you know if it is possible to visit his grave yet. Heaps of fellows of course were buried where it is still impossible to go in the day time, but if he was a Battalion commander I expect he will have been brought back & buried in a cemetery & may well be at Gorre.

  24th February 1916 – No. 78 answering 74 – Hurionville

  Poor old Bet, I’m sorry she has been naughty but it is the only thing to do, you must punish them occasionally. The great thing is not to niggle with punishment. It is far kinder in the end to do it well & seldom. I have got a gent waiting for me to apply the same principle tomorrow when he is sober enough to understand it.

  I am so glad to hear that the little car is running so well & only sorry that I’m not there to drive her. My darling old girl I do expect old Bob to take quite a decent place in his school as I am sure he knows more than the ordinary boy of his age.

  My love my own darling.

  25th February 1916 – No. 79 answering 75 – Hurionville

  Again nothing but snow to report, more snow & more frost. Couldn’t get the horses out of their stables today at all, as the whole place is too slippery for words.

  I want a new tin of camphor ice please & also some bromo.7 We are getting no regular supply of the latter & should like it sent each week with the cakes please.

  We are all wondering where the Boche attack is to come. I can’t help thinking that all these little ‘goes’ all along the line are preludes to a real smashing blow somewhere on a very big scale. However I think that he will find us ready when he does make his effort & it will be pretty costly to him, which is just what one wants. The oftener he attacks the better because the attacker must be the heaviest loser & the more we can kill, the sooner the show will be over. The sooner the better once the object is accomplished. The old Russians seem to be doing very well at present.