‘The widest possible circulation is of the utmost importance.’—_The
Morning Post_.
‘Deservedly attracting a great deal of attention, as expressing with
rare eloquence and force the feelings with which the British wives
and mothers have faced and are facing the supreme sacrifice.’—_The
Morning Post_.
‘Excites widespread interest.’—_The Gentlewoman_.
‘A letter which has become celebrated.’—_The Star_.
‘We would like to see it hung up in our wards.’—_Hospital Blue_.
‘One of the grandest things ever written, for it combines a height of
courage with a depth of tenderness which should be, and is, the stamp
of all that is noblest and best in human nature.’—_A Soldier in France_.
‘Florence Nightingale did great and grand things for the soldiers of
her day, but no woman has done more than the “Little Mother,” whose now
famous letter in the Morning Post has spread like wild-fire from trench
to trench. I hope to God it will be handed down in history, for nothing
like it has ever made such an impression on our fighting men. I defy
any man to feel weak-hearted after reading it.... My God! she makes us
die happy.’—_One who has Fought and Bled_.
‘Worthy of far more than a passing notice; it ought to be reprinted and
sent out to every man at the front. It is a masterpiece and fills one
with pride, noble, level-headed, and pathetic to a degree.’—_Severely
Wounded_.
‘I have lost my two dear boys, but since I was shown the “Little
Mother’s” beautiful letter a resignation too perfect to describe has
calmed all my aching sorrow, and I would now gladly give my sons twice
over.’—_A Bereaved Mother_.
‘The “Little Mother’s” letter should reach every corner of the earth—a
letter of the loftiest ideal, tempered with courage and the most
sublime sacrifice.’—_Percival H. Monkton_.
‘The exquisite letter by a “Little Mother” is making us feel
prouder every day. We women desire to fan the flame which she has so
superbly kindled in our hearts.’—_A British Mother of an Only Son_.
* * * * *
At Harlech, Siegfried and I spent the time getting our poems in order;
Siegfried was at work on his _Old Huntsman_. We made a number of
changes in each other’s verses; I remember that I proposed amendments
which he accepted in his obituary poem ‘To His Dead Body’—written
for me when he thought me dead. We were beginning to wonder whether
it was right for the war to be continued. It was said that Asquith
in the autumn of 1915 had been offered peace-terms on the basis of
_status quo ante_ and that he had been willing to consider them; that
his colleagues had opposed him, and that this was the reason for the
fall of the Liberal Government, and for the ‘Win-the-War’ Coalition
Government of Lloyd George that superseded it. We both thought that
the terms should have been accepted, though Siegfried was more
vehement than I was on the subject. The view we had of the war was
now non-political. We no longer saw it as a war between trade-rivals;
its continuance seemed merely a sacrifice of the idealistic younger
generation to the stupidity and self-protective alarm of the elder.
I made a facetious marginal note on a poem I wrote about this time,
called _Goliath and David_ (in which the biblical legend was reversed
and David was killed by Goliath):
‘War should be a sport for men above forty-five only, the Jesse’s,
not the David’s. “Well, dear father, how proud I am of you serving
your country as a very gallant gentleman prepared to make even the
supreme sacrifice. I only wish I were your age: how willingly would
I buckle on my armour and fight those unspeakable Philistines! As it
is, of course, I can’t be spared; I have to stay behind at the War
Office and administrate for you lucky old men.” “What sacrifices I
have made,” David would sigh when the old boys had gone off with a
draft to the front singing _Tipperary_. “There’s father and my Uncle
Salmon and both my grandfathers, all on active service. I must put a
card in the window about it.”’
We defined the war in our poems by making contrasted definitions of
peace. With Siegfried it was hunting and nature and music and pastoral
scenes; with me it was chiefly children. When I was in France I used
to spend much of my spare time playing with the French children of the
villages in which I was billeted. I put them into my poems, and my own
childhood at Harlech. I called my book _Fairies and Fusiliers_, and
dedicated it to the regiment.
Siegfried stayed a few weeks. When he had gone I began the novel on
which my earlier war chapters are based, but it remained a rough draft.
In September I went for a visit to Kent, to the house of a First
Battalion friend who had recently been wounded. His elder brother
had been killed in the Dardanelles, and his mother kept his bedroom
exactly as he had left it, with the sheets aired, his linen always
freshly laundered, and flowers and cigarettes by his bedside. She was
religious and went about with a vague bright look on her face. The
first night I spent there my friend and I sat up talking about the war
until after twelve o’clock. His mother had gone to bed early, after
urging us not to get too tired. The talk excited me but I managed to
fall asleep at about one o’clock. I was continually awakened by sudden
rapping noises which I at first tried to disregard but which grew
louder and louder. They seemed to come from everywhere. I lay in a cold
sweat. About three o’clock I heard a diabolic yell and a succession of
laughing, sobbing shrieks that sent me flying to the door. I collided
in the passage with the mother, who, to my surprise, was fully dressed.
She said: ‘It’s nothing. One of the maids has hysterics. I am so sorry
you have been disturbed.’ So I went back to bed, but I could not sleep
though the noises had stopped. In the morning I said to my friend: ‘I’m
leaving this place. It’s worse than France.’
* * * * *
In November Siegfried and I rejoined the battalion at Litherland and
shared a hut together. We decided that it was no use making a protest
against the war. Every one was mad; we were hardly sane ourselves.
Siegfried said that we had to ‘keep up the good reputation of the
poets,’ as men of courage, he meant. The best place for us was back
in France away from the more shameful madness of home service. Our
function there was not to kill Germans, though that might happen, but
to make things easier for the men under our command. For them the
difference between being under someone whom they could count as a
friend, someone who protected them as much as he could from the grosser
indignities of the military system and having to study the whims of
any thoughtless, petty tyrant in an officer’s tunic, was all the
difference in the world. By this time the ranks of both line battalions
were filled with men who had enlisted for patriotic reasons and the
professional-soldier tradition was hard on them.... Siegfried, for
instance, on (I think) the day before the Fricourt attack. The attack
had been rehearsed for a week over dummy trenches in the back areas
until the whole performance was perfect, in fact almost stale.
Siegfried was told to rehearse once more. Instead, he led his platoon
into a wood and read to them—nothing military or literary, just the
_London Mail_. Though the _London Mail_ was not in his line, Siegfried
thought that the men would enjoy the ‘Things We Want to Know’ column.
Officers of the Royal Welch were honorary members of a neighbouring
golf club. Siegfried and I used to go there often. He played golf and
I hit a ball alongside him. I had once played at Harlech as a junior
member of the Royal St. David’s, but I had given it up before long
because it was bad for my temper. I was afraid of taking it up again
seriously, so now I limited myself to a single club. When I mishit it
did not matter. I played the fool and purposely put Siegfried off his
game; he was a serious golfer. It was the time of great food shortage;
the submarines sank about every fourth food ship, and there was a
strict meat, butter and sugar ration. But the war did not seem to have
reached the links. The principal business men of Liverpool were members
of the club and did not mean to go short while there was any food at
all coming in at the docks. Siegfried and I went to the club-house for
lunch on the day before Christmas; there was a cold buffet in the club
dining-room offering hams, barons of beef, jellied tongues, cold roast
turkey and chicken. A large, meaty-faced waiter presided. Siegfried
satirically asked him: ‘Is this all? There doesn’t seem to be quite
such a good spread as in previous years.’ The waiter apologized: ‘No,
sir, this isn’t quite up to the usual mark, sir, but we are expecting a
more satisfactory consignment of meat on Boxing Day.’ The dining-room
at the club-house was always full, the links were practically deserted.
The favourite rendezvous of the officers of the Mersey garrison
was the Adelphi Hotel. It had a cocktail bar and a swimming bath.
The cocktail bar was generally crowded with Russian naval officers,
always very drunk. One day I met a major of the King’s Own Scottish
Borderers there. I saluted him. He told me confidentially, taking me
aside: ‘It’s nice of you to salute me, my boy, but I must confess
that I am not what I seem. I wear a crown on my sleeve and so does
a company sergeant-major; but then he’s not entitled to wear these
three cuff bands and the wavy border. Look at them, aren’t they
pretty? As I was saying, I’m not what I seem to be. I’m a sham. I’ve
got a sergeant-major’s stomach.’ I was quite accustomed to drunken
senior officers, so I answered respectfully: ‘Really, major, and how
did you come to get that?’ He said: ‘You think I’m drunk. Well, I am
if you like, but it’s true about my stomach. You see I was in that
Beaumont-Hamel show and I got shot in the guts. It hurt like hell, let
me tell you. They got me down to the field-hospital. I was busy dying;
there was a company sergeant-major in the hospital at the time and
he had got it through the head, and _he_ was busy dying, too, and he
did die. Well, as soon as the sergeant-major died they took out that
long gut, whatever you call the thing, the thing that unwinds—they say
it’s as long as a cricket pitch—and they put it into me, grafted it on
somehow. Wonderful chaps these medicos. They can put in spare parts as
if one was a motor-car. Well, this sergeant-major seems to have been an
abstemious man; the lining of the new gut is much better than my old
one; so I’m celebrating it. I only wish I had his kidneys too.’
An R.A.M.C. captain was sitting by. He broke into the conversation.
‘Yes, major, I know what a stomach wound’s like. It’s the worst of the
lot. You were lucky to reach the field-ambulance alive. The best
chance is to lie absolutely still. I got mine out between the lines,
bandaging a fellow. I flopped into a shell-hole. My stretcher-bearers
wanted to carry me back, but I wasn’t having any. I kept everyone off
with a revolver for forty-eight hours. That saved my life. I couldn’t
count on a spare gut waiting for me at the dressing-station. My only
chance was to lie still and let it heal.’
In December I attended a medical board; they examined my wound and
asked me how I was feeling. The president wanted to know whether I
wanted a few months more home service. I said: ‘No, sir, I should be
much obliged if you would pass me fit for service overseas.’ In January
I went out again.
I went back as an old soldier; my kit and baggage proved it. I had
reduced the Christmas tree that I first brought out to a pocket-torch
with a fourteen-day battery in it, and a pair of insulated wire-cutters
strong enough to cut German wire (the ordinary British army issue
would only cut British wire). Instead of a haversack I had a pack
like the ones the men carried, but lighter and waterproof. I had lost
my revolver when I was wounded and had not bought another; rifle and
bayonet could always be got from the battalion. (Not carrying rifle
and bayonet made officers conspicuous in an attack; in most divisions
now they carried them, and also wore trousers rolled down over their
puttees like the men, because the Germans had been taught to recognize
them by their thin knees.) Instead of the heavy blankets that I had
brought out before I now had an eiderdown sleeping-bag in an oiled-silk
cover. I also had Shakespeare and a Bible, both printed on india-paper,
a Catullus and a Lucretius in Latin, and two light weight, folding,
canvas arm-chairs, one as a present for Yates the quartermaster,
the other for myself. I was wearing a very thick whipcord tunic with a
neat patch above the second button and another between the shoulders;
it was my only salvage from the last time out except the pair of
ski-ing boots which I was wearing again, reasonably waterproof—my
breeches had been cut off me in hospital.
There was a draft of ten young officers with me. As Captain Charles
Edmonds notes in his book _A Subaltern’s War_, young officers at this
time were expected to be ‘roistering blades with wine and women.’ These
ten did their best. Three of them got venereal disease at Rouen. In
each case, I believe, it was the first time that they had been with
women. They were strictly brought-up Welsh boys of the professional
classes and knew nothing about prophylactics. One of them was sharing
a hut with me. He came in very late and very drunk one night from the
_Drapeau Blanc_, a well-known blue-lamp brothel, woke me up and began
telling me what a wonderful time he had. ‘He had never known before,’
he said, ‘what a wonderful thing sex was.’ I said irritably and in some
disgust: ‘The _Drapeau Blanc_? Then I hope to God you washed yourself.’
He was very Welsh and on his dignity. ‘What do you mean, captain? I did
wass my fa-ace and ha-ands.’ There were no restraints in France as in
England; these boys had money to spend and knew that they had a good
chance of being killed within a few weeks anyhow. They did not want to
die virginal. So venereal hospitals at the base were always crowded.
(The troops took a lewd delight in exaggerating the proportion of army
chaplains to combatant officers treated there.) The _Drapeau Blanc_
saved the life of scores of them by incapacitating them for future
trench service.
The instructors at the Bull Ring were full of bullet-and-bayonet
enthusiasm which they tried to pass on to the drafts. The drafts
were now, for the most part, either forcibly enlisted men or wounded
men returning, and at this dead season of the year it was difficult
for anyone to feel enthusiastic on arrival in France. The training
principle had recently been revised. _Infantry Training_, 1914, had
laid it down politely that the soldier’s ultimate aim was to put out
of action or render ineffective the armed forces of the enemy. This
statement was now not considered direct enough for a war of attrition.
Troops were taught instead that their duty was to hate the Germans and
kill as many of them as possible. In bayonet-practice the men were
ordered to make horrible grimaces and utter blood-curdling yells as
they charged. The bayonet-fighting instructors’ faces were permanently
set in a ghastly grin. ‘Hurt him, now! In at his belly! Tear his guts
out!’ they would scream as the men charged the dummies. ‘Now that upper
swing at his privates with the butt. Ruin his chances for life. No
more little Fritzes! ... Naaaoh! Anyone would think that you _loved_
the bloody swine, patting and stroking ’em like that. Bite him, I say!
Stick your teeth in him and worry him! Eat his heart out!’
Once more I was glad to be sent up to the trenches.