For Love and Courage

by E. W. Hermon

  I can see old Spoot so well putting on her most unnatural expression for the photo. We want the drawers & vests v. badly so send them off as soon as you can please. We have had a fall of snow but it is certainly NO warmer!!

  Your numbers have been quite correct in spite of your diary going wrong. I feel you are thinking you’re great!!

  My love to you dearie.

  27th February 1916 – No. 81 answering 76 & 77 – Hurionville

  You say you got a lovely letter from me & I can’t think who wrote it as I have written you such rotten letters lately old dear, that I have been quite ashamed of them.

  I never heard such absolute bunkum as trying to make you give up the idea of working on the land. Why can’t an English woman do what the French woman can? If it wasn’t for what the woman is doing here the French nation would be in a baddish way for cereals this year I can tell you.

  I hope to be able to have a bit of a field day tomorrow if it doesn’t freeze tonight & make the roads impassable.

  We are all rather interested in the Verdun attack but I can’t help thinking that the Huns can never break through & that the French have them absolutely held in reality. So far they have only engaged very few of their reserves according to the papers & I think you will find that they will be a match for the Hun yet & the more he attacks the better. We can only end the war by killing them & the oftener they offer themselves as targets the quicker the war will be over. It is a very interesting problem whether this is their big offensive or only a feint & that they have something else in store elsewhere along the line. The next few days must show their hand.

  Many thanks for doing the vests and drawers as the men want them badly.

  28th February 1916 – No. 82 – Hurionville

  I have apparently fallen foul of James.8 Without thinking I recommended a capital fellow for the regiment & quite forgot to write & consult James before doing it. He takes the gravest exception to this & wrote to the W.O. & managed to get the thing cancelled, & the poor fellow has had to put up with a commission in the 9th Lancers!!!

  Also you know that Syme was wanted for the gun. Well the 1st Army wrote to me and asked if I had any objection to the transfer & I wrote & said that I had. Mac wrote & told me he was furious, some time ago, & I forgot to write & smooth him down so he wrote me a severe reprimand. As a matter of fact I didn’t know at the time that Jimmy had made it a special point that Syme should go to the gun. Poor little Syme, when I showed him the final edict that he was to go, he broke down completely & wept!

  DURING MARCH THE Battle of Verdun continued with more intense fighting and heavy casualties on both sides. General Pétain took command of the French Second Army at this time, personally taking control of the artillery. On 2 March the French repulsed an attack on Vaux where a young officer – Capitaine Charles de Gaulle, the future President of France – was taken prisoner. Escaping from a prison camp in the east of Germany, he almost reached the Swiss frontier, but was recaptured and remained in captivity until the Armistice.

  Vaux changed hands thirteen times during the month. Reports in the British press detailing the casualty figures would have made alarming reading.

  1st March 1916 – Hurionville

  I got what you call a ‘snippety’ letter today but it gave me great pleasure so you need not have worried. Don’t be depressed at the news. The French are doing fine & killing the Huns like anything & it is only by killing in very large quantities that the war can be brought to an end. If the Hun would attack like this every day of the week & all along the line it would finish the war in two months!

  Many thanks for getting the parcels off; I hope they will arrive alright. I had a long letter from Sheppard a day or two ago enclosing his photo!

  My love to you all.

  2nd March 1916 – No. 85 – Hurionville

  The old French seem to be holding their own alright at Verdun tho’ I am not quite sure if the Hun hasn’t got quite a good position out of it from which to make a further advance but the exhaustion, consequent on an attack of the magnitude, is so great these times that it may be very likely three months before he can make another effort.

  They say they just flung over 700,000 shells in something over 4½ hours tho’ this sounds a good bit & there must have been some elbowing in the air. Rather like the rush for a Cheshire gateway!!9 It is quite possible because if they had 200 batteries there, & they probably had quite that, it is only 12 shots per battery per minute. If you go on at this & concentrate it on a mile of front it is more than one shell per yard of front per minute or 300 shells on every yard of front in the 4½ hours. It just gives you some idea of what the moral effect must be. It is not to be wondered at that men lose their reason under it. The miracle is that anyone retains it.

  I heard of a fine piece of work the other day. A shell took one of our airmen’s legs off while he was flying over Don & he nevertheless brought his machine & his observer back to our side of the line and landed safely behind Les Brebis!! It must have been [an] anxious time for the observer knowing his pilot was so badly hit & might faint at any moment!!

  I must to bed now old dear.

  6th March 1916 – No. 89 answering 85 – Hurionville

  Man proposes, God disposes & he chose to send about 4 inches of snow last night & so our little jaunt was off today but we are booked to start in the morning, but I am afraid that it is going to freeze like Hades tonight & the S.S.M. tells me that all the ‘chickens’ that roost every night in a tree outside his door have thought better of it tonight & have gone to bed in the fowl house so it looks rather as if the roads would be a sheet of ice tomorrow.

  Did you ever see anything like Shep’s photo? Buxton says ‘You can see he ’ain’t no real soldier or he wouldn’t have a stick – looks a proper fop!!’

  My love to you my darling.

  7th March 1916 – No. 90 answering 86 – Marthes

  It froze very hard last night & I started at 9 a.m. walking & leading the horses, but a mile from Hurionville it came on to snow & so I turned back & waited but it got no worse so at 11 a.m. I started again & we rode 9 miles against the snow & got here just after 1 p.m. I was so frightened at the early start that I should get here & find my wagons snowed up some miles away and no forage or rations for the men & horses, but all panned out alright. Weather conditions are beastly, the whole country is under melting snow & I very much doubt if we shall have our outing tomorrow.

  Dearie mine, I really don’t think it is worth while bothering about the Zeppelins.10 If you are for it, you’re for it & tho’ it may be silly one rather feels it is rather ‘infra dig’ to go diving about in the cellar when so many in the village haven’t got a cellar to go to. If you could extend the freedom of the cellar to the village it would be different, but really the chance of a Zeppelin hitting our house standing alone in an insignificant country village is so remote as to be almost negligible.

  My love to you my darling. I have got a very nice billet, a fine double bed with white curtains over it, & feel quite like a bride!!

  11th March 1916 – No. 93 answering 89 – Bruay

  Well I arrived at my new billets yesterday at midday. We marched about 20 miles through the snow & when we got here found that the staff had made no arrangements for billeting us at all, or rather what arrangements they had made were too futile for words. The result is that I have two troops with me here in this part of the town and Steve and Tulloch are two miles away right across the valley on the other side of the town.

  This town is very like Wigan, nothing but miners’ houses, mines, coal, mud & snow. My horses are worse than they have ever been before and the only saving thing is that I myself have most comfortable quarters. I have got a beast of a throat again, all this cold & slush lately has been simply beastly & my poor horses that were looking so lovely & well, I don’t know how they will come out of this.

  I am also annoyed with myself because I meant to give up my smoking all together during Lent at least & after the worry
& bother of yesterday & today I had a cigarette after dinner each day & I am annoyed that I wasn’t strong enough to resist the temptation!! But you will no doubt say ‘Did you expect to be?!!!!!.’

  However I will endeavour to turn over that eternal leaf, how often it has been turned——it is almost threadbare now.

  12th March 1916 – No. 94 answering 90 & 91 – Bruay

  First and foremost let me tell you that I am feeling very much better today, it has been a lovely warm day in spite of a great deal of snow still lying about, but which under the warming influence of the sun is fast turning the streams into rivers.

  I am sorry to hear about Miss Gaisford’s brother & where he was killed. There are hundreds of them lying there now & never been buried at all or likely to be. It is impossible to get there, but I shouldn’t tell her that as she no doubt expects the Hun buried them. Of course he may have been buried, but all round Hohenzollern our folk were driven back & between the lines it has been out of the question, first of all to find anyone special in the dark or to get them in anyhow. I believe that there are any amount there still, tho’ I expect wind and weather have by now finished the job & there must not be much left.

  There is an awful lot of influenza out here & I know several folk who are down with it.

  Well done Ken, he really is doing fine. I should so love to see him as I feel I don’t know my second son at all & if I met him in the street I shouldn’t know him!!

  14th March 1916 – No. 95 – Bruay

  Tomorrow I exchange the squalor & filth of a mining town for the even more filthy country village lately occupied by our gallant Allies. They tell me the lice left behind are as big as walnuts. In occupation of the said village I found Monkey Tilney and Wilfred Royds. Old Monkey Tilney was in great form and I lunched with him & had a rare old chat.

  If as you say you have so darkened the house that no light shows outside I shouldn’t bother even to put out the electric light. Zeppelins don’t come all that way & risk £250,000 to drop a bomb on Cowfold! Just see that there is no skylight that shows upwards i.e. that in housemaid’s closet & Jane etc!!

  18th March 1916 – No. 96 answering 93, 94, 95 & 96 – Magnicourt en Comte

  I am sending little Meggie a small birthday present of some French buttons worn by a soldier who gave his life for his country at Souchez.

  Tonight after dinner an old French man came round to say his mare was slipping her foal & had we a vet, so I went round to see if I could be of any assistance. The whole show was really rather amusing as we were in a tiny little bit of a shed with the mare, a calf and four cows; all the neighbours had turned up to lend a hand, same like we, but when I got there I found that there was a man who thoroughly knew the job, so in reality the only help I was, was to get the mare properly twitched which either through drink or something, the bloke who was holding her head couldn’t manage.

  The whole operation was under command of the lady who owned the mare & who held the lamp, & what with the crowd & one thing and another, well! It was a case of the birth of a foal that had been dead some 8 or 9 days and a mal-presentation at that. However it ended alright & I hope the mare will be alright; I think she will tho’.

  You will no doubt be amused but I have worked things and now have got Syme back with his whole command of machine guns as well, much to his delight!!

  I am glad you are taking old Bob to Eton to get his clothes & I should certainly get him fitted out at the man’s shop that the boys go to. I think even when I was there Tom Brown was rather relying on his pristine glory.11

  My throat is bad again. That beastly snow & cold gave me a third cold & throat after having thrown off two others. However, I am mending now. I have reduced my smoking to one cigarette after meals!!

  I am at the back of the front, out of harm’s way, so far as my billet is concerned tho’ during the time that the Division is in the front line, as now, one has to go up there occasionally & I am just going to start a bit of digging.

  Love to you all.

  20th March 1916 – No. 97 answering 97 & 98 & 99 – Magnicourt

  I ought to have written this last night but had had a very long ride & walk up to Carency & when I came back I found it was 10.15, so I turned in. It was very interesting being under the Notre Dame de Lorette spur12 and especially so seeing it from this western side. We have lately taken over this piece of country from the French & all where I was yesterday some of the heaviest fighting of the war had taken place. The villages are absolutely flat, Carency being a pile of bricks only, with no shape to houses even to show where they have been.

  22nd March 1916 – No. 99 answering 100! – Hermin

  We have fetched up in our new billet after a long & weary march of three miles! If you change the ‘o’ in my name (surname) to an ‘i’ you have the shop. It’s not so bad but it might be better. We haven’t got such a good mess tho’ I have a fairly nice room, but my bedroom becomes the general sitting room because it has an open fireplace.

  The Harrods cake13 was alright for those who like shop cakes. I don’t.

  My love my darling.

  23rd March 1916 – No. 100 answering 101 – Hermin

  This morning after a week of the most glorious weather it snowed! I rode down to Villers au Bois & then walked down past Carency to see the Cyclist platoons that I have down there doing trench maintenance. A most extraordinary state of affairs has existed here for some time in that tho’ the artillery have been fighting & shelling the support and reserve lines, the infantry have had a sort of truce, & talked to one another all day & night. The Huns opposite are convinced that they are beat and that now they are fighting for terms. That is very good news, and last night we got a little Hun prisoner who said that it would be all over in six months, & that Germany couldn’t last any longer.

  I have had four platoons of Cyclists in the line for a week & four of them got knocked out with a shell I am sorry to say. However as one of the wounded said ‘These things are inevitable in war’ & there you are. Then I rode on to Le Bois de [word crossed out], a big wood where I had some business and it is astonishing how like the woods at home it was, especially the Roman woods. Deep ravines, just the same & the same Hazel, young cut & everything. Green woodpeckers and all & it made it feel wonderfully like home I can tell you and I longed to be back with you once more.

  Will you please order me another pair of heavy shooting shoes from Moykopf.

  Will you also send us a good boxful of loud gramophone needles as we are nearly out of them.

  My love to you all.

  24th March 1916 – No. 101 answering 102 – Hermin

  I awoke this morning to find four or five inches of snow on the ground and still falling fast. However this afternoon it cleared & the sun came out and it was really quite nice again. As far as I can see we are settled here for some time tho’ of course one can’t be certain. The Corps Commander came round and saw me tonight and asked me to dinner.

  Talking of rats, they abound here in millions, & are so bold they won’t bother to get out of the way!

  27th March 1916 – No. 104 – Hermin

  Unfortunately no letters today & I fear that they may have all got spoilt in the Sussex disaster.14

  I am having great fun now with my shop. I have started a Field Force Canteen & it opened tonight for the first time from 6 to 7 p.m. and we took 150 francs in that time. I want you to send me if possible by post:

  3 doz. bottles

  ‘aspirin’

  2 doz.

  bottles Quinine tablets

  2 doz.

  bottles Enos Fruit Salts

  2 doz. boxes

  Beechams Pills

  2 boxes

  toothbrushes

  You must let me know what is the price of the things or send the bill so that I can see their cost & make a small profit!!

  I must confess that acting on your advice I went back to my pipe this afternoon, but it tastes so beastly that I don’t know whether I shall stick to it
or not.

  My love to you all my dears.

  28th March 1916 – No. 105 answering 106 – Hermin

  I fear your 105 has gone in the Sussex. We got no mail yesterday and today I got the right mail for the day. I want you to get me several more things for my shop.

  The enclosed matchbox covers:

  1 doz. Nickel

  2 doz. Black

  I also want:

  a gross of refills for ‘Tommy’s Cookers’15

  a doz. Tommy’s Cookers complete

  1 doz. Burnishers

  2 doz. Selvit Cloths

  I want them as soon as possible please also 2 doz packets of playing cards. Trade is very brisk & today we beat all records by taking 250 francs!! It is really wonderful how the men appreciate it. They have got B.E.F. canteens and one gets one’s things from them & sets up on one’s own. I put down 624 francs as capital to buy the stock & since 5 p.m. last night we have taken over the counter 370 francs!

  I do so wish I could have been at home for my little Meggie’s birthday.

  I should love to see you on your milking stool,16 how jolly awkward you will be to start with!! It has been an awfully blustery day today & cold too.