I had sent my parents a wire that I would be arriving at Waterloo
Station the next morning. The way from the hospital train to the
waiting ambulances was roped off; as each stretcher case was lifted off
the train a huge hysterical crowd surged up to the barrier and uttered
a new roar. Flags were being waved. It seemed that the Somme battle
was regarded at home as the beginning of the end of the war. As I idly
looked at the crowd, one figure detached itself; it was my father,
hopping about on one leg, waving an umbrella and cheering with the best
of them. I was embarrassed, but was soon in the ambulance. I was on the
way to Queen Alexandra’s Hospital, Highgate. This was Sir Alfred Mond’s
big house, lent for the duration of the war, and a really good place to
be in; having a private room to myself was the most unexpected luxury.
What I most disliked in the army was never being alone, forced to live
and sleep with men whose company in many cases I would have run miles
to avoid.
I was not long at Highgate; the lung healed up easily and my finger
was saved for me. I heard here for the first time that I was supposed
to be dead; the joke contributed greatly to my recovery. The people
with whom I had been on the worst terms during my life wrote the most
enthusiastic condolences to my parents: my housemaster, for instance.
I have kept a letter dated the 5th August 1916 from _The Times_
advertisement department:
_Captain Robert Graves._
Dear Sir,
We have to acknowledge receipt of your letter with reference to the
announcement contradicting the report of your death from wounds.
Having regard, however, to the fact that we had previously published
some biographical details, we inserted your announcement in our issue
of to-day (Saturday) under ‘Court Circular’ without charge, and we
have much pleasure in enclosing herewith cutting of same.
Yours, etc.
The cutting read:
Captain Robert Graves, Royal Welch Fusiliers, officially reported died
of wounds, wishes to inform his friends that he is recovering from his
wounds at Queen Alexandra’s Hospital, Highgate, N.
* * *
Mrs. Lloyd George has left London for Criccieth.
* * *
I never saw the biographical details supplied by my father; they might
have been helpful to me here. Some letters written to me in France
were returned to him as my next-of-kin. They were surcharged: ‘Died of
wounds—present location uncertain.—P. Down, post-corporal.’ The only
inconvenience that my death caused me was that Cox’s Bank stopped my
pay and I had difficulty in persuading it to honour my cheques. I had
a letter from Siegfried telling me that he was overjoyed to hear I was
alive again. (I wondered whether he had been avenging me.) He was now
back in England with suspected lung trouble. We agreed to take our
leave together at Harlech when I was better. Siegfried wrote that he
was nine parts dead from the horror of the Somme fighting.
I was able to travel early in September. We met at Paddington.
Siegfried bought a copy of _The Times_ at the bookstall. As usual
we turned to the casualty list first; and found there the names of
practically every officer in the First Battalion, either killed or
wounded. Edmund Dadd was killed. His brother Julian, in Siegfried’s
company, wounded. (Shot through the throat, as we learned later, only
able to talk in a whisper, and for months utterly prostrated. It
had been at Ale Alley at Ginchy, on 3rd September. A dud show; the
battalion had been outflanked in a counter-attack.) News like this in
England was far more upsetting than when one was in France. I was still
very weak and could not help crying all the way up to Wales. Siegfried
said bitterly: ‘Well, I expect the colonel got his c.b. at
any rate.’ England was strange to the returned soldier. He could not
understand the war-madness that ran about everywhere looking for a
pseudo-military outlet. Every one talked a foreign language; it was
newspaper language. I found serious conversation with my parents all
but impossible. A single typical memorial of this time will be enough:
A MOTHER’S ANSWER TO
‘A COMMON SOLDIER’