For Love and Courage

by E. W. Hermon

  Well, goodnight old dear.

  9th July 1916 – No. 201 answering 206 – Valhoun

  I had a nice sleepy little letter from you today which somehow seems to bring you so close, dearie mine. I can see it being written so well, and all the room seems just as it might be here; it makes me long to be home again. I’d give anything in the world old dear, to see you & the dear little Chugs again. I expect my little Meggie has grown quite big & old Bet must be quite the young lady now. Fat little Pook too, give them all my love & a kiss for my unknown son!! I certainly couldn’t pick him out of a bunch. I hope he realizes the gravity of his position & is fulfilling his role in a fit manner.

  I am writing to the old Gov. tonight & as the Battalion is for the moment off. I shall tell him of the offer as it will help the old man over his disappointment that the other debacle caused him.

  The stencil came today old dear & I think it will do fine as it isn’t so big as to be very easily read. If the names show up too much I shall have to paint them out.

  I had a nice letter from Mac today & he amused me most awfully by saying: ‘I am trying to chuck smoking: I only started yesterday & it is a bit of a wrench. I feel that those wretched cigarettes do me a lot of harm & I shall never get in the way of smoking a pipe only, so I am going to have a cigar a day after tea & nothing else!’ I think I see your finger in this pie old dear.

  I nearly killed the C.O. yesterday by walking him off his legs. He kept on saying ‘I think we’ll just wait a minute while I mop my hat out’! I must say it really was very hot walking along the trenches & they were very wet and slippery which made it bad going too. I went to our church in the school today & we had quite a nice little service.

  My love to you my old darling.

  10th July 1916 – No. 202 – Valhoun

  I am afraid prospects of leave are not very bright old dear & I fear once more you will have to possess your dear old soul in patience, but as Steve says ‘I don’t want leave, what I want is to go home & stay there’!

  We are all very pleased with the news at present, we go slowly but we do keep on going & it looks very much as tho’ the old Hun was going to have everyone at him shortly & I don’t believe he can stand that for long. He is losing men on every front & we must have a great deal more of him killed before it can be a really satisfactory termination. It’s fine that the French have got to Péronne & I only hope that they will get it in the next few days. It is a bit of a bridgehead & will therefore be difficult to take I expect. Anyhow at present wherever there is fighting going on the Central Powers are going back & we are advancing which is all in the right direction at last.

  I wish we could have a go soon, it is very wearying work sitting here waiting & waiting. If the end of Sept. comes and we haven’t had a go I shall most certainly go to Infantry, I can’t spend another year & take so small a part as I have done this last nine months, it isn’t fair.

  However we must see what the next two months will bring & I wish it would bring the open fighting once more, unless it does it will mean an absolute war of exhaustion which is very trying & most boring. We must hope for the best tho’ & perhaps the end may come one of these days fairly suddenly. I wish to goodness it would buck up. There’s nothing of any interest to tell you old dear I am afraid & as I did not get your letter today have none of the proper sort of inspiration.

  My love to you my darling.

  12th July 1916 – No. 203 answering 207 – Valhoun

  Very many happy returns of your birthday tho’ may the next find us all spending it together, which I believe it will.

  Things seem to be going really well on all fronts & I have just heard of the capture of Péronne and a large Russian Victory too & if really true it is magnificent. How I wish we could have a go, you don’t know how I long to lead these magnificent men of ours at the Hun. Perhaps it will come in a few weeks now or even sooner. I really believe that soon now the Hun will have to retrace his steps towards home.

  Jimmy came over here and is now down where the boost is so he went right into it. Our man, until I took him that day and made him go, had never seen the front-line trenches anywhere except in the illustrated papers. He had no more idea than the man in the moon of what the modern trench system meant. The depth it extends back or anything to do with it and how he intends to lead us through it I don’t know. However all things are supposed to be for the best and there may be some great blessing in it, but it’s difficult to see yet.

  I am glad to see in the Times today that a Hun officer seemed to think that some of our new devices were rather hot stuff, they seem to have surprised them a bit.

  I am awfully glad we have been so successful with their observation balloons as they are damnable things tho’ I can’t help thinking that they don’t really see as much with them as we give them credit for. It’s beastly having them looking right down on one as one always thinks that they see you even if they don’t.

  We have just had an awfully nice Med. Officer posted to us which is a great thing as they are very like the curate’s egg these times.

  12th July – No. 204 – Château at Bomy

  I’m certainly not going to allow you to have any more wounded heroes to look after, it seems to have affected your brain a little. Please therefore give the enclosed to Betty and Mairky for a birthday present.

  I am at present in the most glorious château at a place called Bomy, & have got a most lovely room which I am sharing with Steve. It reminds me very much of our room at the Kellys’ only I think it is bigger, a glorious big bed, but very lonely by oneself. We have got some nice ground to train on here.

  By the bye, will you stop the cocoa please as we are very much overstocked. The jam too might be halved, i.e. double the intervals please. The bacon I want to continue as usual. I think Barber is writing you about what he wants done as we started the H.Q. Mess today, we weren’t able to have it before as we couldn’t find a suitable place to have it in. Will you thank the Chugs for their two very nice letters please. I enclose you old Bobbo’s effort & also one from Mac.

  The old baroness who lives here tells me that she has got badgers here in her woods & by the number of stuffed foxes they have in the hall I can quite believe it.

  My love to you my darling.

  13th July 1916 – No. 205 answering 208–211 – Château at Bomy

  My darling, I love your grouses & it makes me feel that even tho’ I am so far away I can still share some things with you, which is everything. Really dearie, things aren’t at all bad & you need not worry as there has been absolutely nothing at all that you could take the slightest exception to in Jimmy’s behaviour since he joined us. The lads said, when they begged me to stay, that I could keep him in the straight and narrow way and he certainly has been most amenable & has adopted every suggestion I have made so it all works well. Of course I haven’t got a day’s work but I have now taken the Hotchkiss guns under my wing & amuse myself with them so it gives me something to fill the mornings with. You pay me a compliment about carrying on but I’ve seen too many 2nd-in-commands working against their C.O.s & I told him that I would support him in every way & so far as I can, I think I can conscientiously say that I am.

  Lass dear, you mustn’t worry too much about the trenches, they are very much safer really than you would suppose. For every shell that falls in them there are hundreds fall harmlessly outside & it is only when there is a really heavy strafe on they get a bit unpleasant. However they have got to be occupied by someone & I have had or shall have had 18 months out of them so it’s only fair that I should have a go now. It was certainly nice getting the offer of the Battalion & I shall certainly go when my promise is up.

  I did want to hear what you thought old dear & have loved every word of your lovely letters today, & I envy you your splendid calm courage old dear. You are quite right, I couldn’t say no or I could never have asked for anything again, but I wrote and explained the whole situation to C.B. & I know he will understand.

>   What a jolly day you must have had on the shore at Rottingdean. I feel I would go as far as having a bathe to share it with you? I am so glad to hear the old boy looked fit & well. He told me he made 46 runs the other day & 20 something another. I’m all for a present to old Mac from us both with ‘Brook Hill 1916’ on it. Yes, I have got the shirts and they are top-hole. Wasn’t Chev’s a nice letter? As you say it is awfully nice how all these boys seem to care for one & all the other squadron lads are the same & these cyclists too seem alright.

  Will you find me the simplest, child’s 1st [French] grammar book & send it me please, & if you can get a small flat dictionary I should like it as I want to learn to talk this lingo & I seem to have had a bit of a chance to learn lately. I also want a really good pair of wire cutters in a leather case to carry on the saddle, real good ones. Price no object. Can you send us from time to time some mint (roast lamb mint) not peppermint!!!

  Goodnight old dear.

  14th July 1916 – No. 206 – Château at Bomy

  After the avalanche of letters I had yesterday I have had to go without today. It has been a glorious day today & we are all very bucked at the good news from the Somme & are hoping great hopes in consequence. I hope old Chev has come to no harm, tho’ I am a little fearful that they were thrown in too soon.

  My love to you dearie, sorry this is such a rotten letter.

  THE ‘GOOD NEWS from the Somme’ included the British capture of Mametz Wood on the 12th, and large numbers of German howitzers and munitions on the 13th. On the 14th the British took Longueval, Bazentin-le-Petit, and Trônes Wood, marking the end of the first phase of the Battle of the Somme.

  15th July 1916 – No. 207 answering 212 & 214 – Château at Bomy

  You say the master told you some news, well it’s quite correct. At the same time you needn’t be at all downhearted over it. Things do go very well & what to my mind is a great point, the counter-attacks of the Hun are now nearly all beaten off & if he does succeed in gaining a point he is very soon outed again.

  I think now you may say we are beginning to see the beginning of the end. It will probably be another year before the end actually comes and there will still be some very heavy fighting probably heavier than there ever has been up to date, but I really think that we have him set now. I certainly don’t think you are doomed to disappointment, but don’t be misled into believing that there is going to be a procession to Berlin because there isn’t unless it’s from the East. If we could get them back to the line of the Meuse that is as much as you can possibly expect & would be splendid, but they aren’t going back even so far without some real proper scrapping & they are at present by no means short of men. Where they get them from goodness only knows but the fact remains that they have got them & that they fight in the trenches almost as well as ever they did.

  I haven’t heard from C.B. because I haven’t had a chance but I put things in my letter in a way that I don’t think he could take exception to. Of course, if the old man was to go sick or anything between now & then, well I should be boiled!!

  Cakes & marmalade have turned up alright. Can you get Jacksons to put in his parcel a good bottle of acid drops! Good for the summer months & the C.O. wants them & I am Mess President!

  Please thank Bob & Mairky for their nice letters. Hope the new cock will be a success ‘because we are going to eat poor Sam on Saturday’!! Heartless little wretches.

  17th July 1916 – No. 209 answering 216 – Château at Bomy

  It is very odd but only yesterday I was wondering who was in the cottage now & was thinking of offering it to Buxton. I have always known that they were living beyond their means, but having had a fellow feeling, have never said anything because if they like to do it that is their affair.

  What I should like to offer her is to let her live there rates & taxes free instead of paying her debts and for you to continue to pay her what you have done in the past. The rent is nothing to me, everything to her & I should like her to go in as soon as possible, & by this means she should be able to pay off her debts by Xmas, but it is to enable her to pay them off and to live free of debt afterwards that I am doing it. She should be easily able to do this as she should save 6/6 a week.

  I can remember that evening at Potchefstroom, & also writing the exact time on the wall on the right-hand side of the mantelpiece. What a long time it is ago & yet one can see it so very clearly.

  Dear little Chugs I am so glad that they enjoyed their party, they are lucky to have so little knowledge of what is going on, tho’ I look forward to the time when I can bring them out here & show them what war means in a country as it might be useful to them in after life. I should like them to see Lorette, Ablain & Souchy, Carency and the country round Loos. They would never forget it & perhaps later on when questions of conscription or suchlike things cropped up it might be very useful for them to have seen it.

  I am very anxious to know what the Government will allow you as a quarter’s consumption of petrol. I see you are all going to be put on an allowance.

  Tonight I went for a walk up in the wood to see my badger sett again and it is in very active occupation and by the length of the small white hairs about there must be several pits there, probably four.

  18th July 1916 – No. 210 – Château at Bomy

  I was very pleased to see by the Intelligence Summary that the old Boche has been taking it in the neck. A captured messenger had on him a message giving the strength of his Battalion – 3 off: 2 N.C.O.s & 19 men!! We had nothing like that. There were a lot of messages captured, & the Hun wasn’t liking things a bit.

  I had a happy morning with my guns & am going to have some shooting with them tomorrow. We’ve had marvellous weather lately, awfully overcast, just the same sort of days as our ever-memorable sail from Brixham to Weymouth. Well old dear I am quite dried up. Many thanks for the toothbrushes, you didn’t say what they cost. Perhaps you will have done so in your letter. Will you send me a tin of toothpaste please.

  20th July 1916 – No. 212 – answering 217 & 218 – Château at Bomy

  We had quite a decent field day today & I enjoyed it as I had a command once more. Our mutual friend H.W.8 inspects us on Saturday & then sets us a scheme. We are in the ‘training area’ at present, doing just what we should do were we at camp in times of piping peace.

  The army rents a piece of ground about five miles square where we are allowed to ride over the crops & go anywhere, & then they have claims officers who go round and pay for the damage done. The worst of it is that the whole ground is under crops & you have to ride through standing wheat & when bread is so dear it seems a sin. As a matter of fact one can’t bring yourself to do it & really there is very little damage done at all.

  I think old Mairky’s little pencil effort simply sweet, & old Bet’s ‘pres’ too. I am simply starving for a sight of the Chugs. I had a postcard from old Bob telling me he is still top of his form which is splendid. I am most awfully pleased that the old lad is doing so very well.

  I must change for dinner now & will add a bit when I come to bed. I’ve just had the most amusing evening’s bridge I ever had in my life. The last three hands I and my partner lost 200 in the 1st, 200 in the second and 800 in the third!!!! and I lost one franc on the evening.

  You asked about our hosts. Well, they asked us in to tea the other night. We had tea & cake – they all put the cake into their tea & eat it like porridge!! As soon as this was over a bottle of champagne was opened, glasses handed round & the health of the ‘Armée Britannique’ drunk. There were at least a doz. folk there & everyone had to start by clinking glasses with everyone else. This entails 132 clinks!! Then we drank, then James, in the midst of a red-hot Royalist household, proposed ‘Republic Française’!!!! This produced a capital effect tho’ it is doubtful if the one desired. The old man turned his glass upside down & the situation looked desperate till we all began to laugh & then things came round again but the whole show was too funny for words.

  The
Baroness is really quite a nice old girl & I talk to her a bit but as she only speaks French & I only speak lingua Franca-Britannica it’s a bit odd but we manage somehow, but she is seen at her best discussing the flush tank of the Jane with Buckin.

  My love to you my darling.

  23rd July 1916 – No. 215 answering 220 – Château at Bomy

  I have a sort of feeling that you cannot have got one of my letters, because I wrote and asked you for a second lot of those watch guards omitting the smallest size. At the same time I wrote to old Grandma at Merrow, Balcombe & you say she has never received it.

  In the official report we get of operations it said that ‘the Cavalry had been ordered forward’, & in view of Chev’s letter I expected that he would have gone. However, so far as I know he didn’t. We get the wildest of rumours that you can possibly imagine and really know nothing. We depend principally on the newspapers received from home & when special fighting is going on we get a wire about the same time as the papers get it in England.

  Tell old Bet she may buy her goat if she is very keen about it & she seems to want it badly.

  Yesterday we had our inspection & field day under a scheme set by the Corps Commander. I personally had nothing whatsoever to do & was merely a spectator. The whole show went real well & the Corps Commander was thoroughly pleased & heartily congratulated Jimmy on his fine Regiment.

  I can’t make up my mind whether I am regretting have stayed on or not. At present I rather think I am, & I wish now that I hadn’t listened to the lads, but it was very hard not to. Anyhow it seems that I have thrown away three months for nothing but it is too late to grumble.

  Many thanks for the wire cutters which turned up alright today & are fine & just the sort that are the best for the job out here.