Tag Archives: Tunnelling

A reluctant C.O.

After seeing the Engineers officer on the Sunday, and Nobby Clark on the Monday, today it was time for him to see his Commanding Officer:

‘He did not seem exactly pleased about it. He is a new C.O. since I left the Battalion and he seemed to think I was trying to get a soft job – as a matter of fact it certainly is not always a soft job…after some palaver he initialled my application which I immediately took up to the Major of the R.E.s who said that the C.O.’s initials were hardly enough and he would write to our C.O. about it…The C.O. seemed very reluctant about it – he said he did not know me well enough to give me a “character” and I had not had enough experience of trench warfare etc.’

If the transfer did go through, he told Pips, he expected that he’d be posted to the Engineers on a month’s probation to the mining company: if he proved efficient he would stay with them, and if not he’d be sent back to the Battalion.

A ‘letter card’ from Pips, with pictures of Burnham Beeches [about 20 miles to the north-west of Hampton Wick] was a ‘pleasant reminder of the good old days of peace’, and prompted some reminiscences: ‘I well remember calling at the Bells of Ouseley [in Windsor, a few miles away] for a drink, and filling the old stone bottles with beer and water (not mixed, of course)…and the village cricket match too – it is curious how well these things stand out in one’s memory.’

[Next letter: 22 November]

A year to the day

‘A year ago today I joined the Artists Rifles’, he told Pips, in the second half of the letter begun yesterday: ‘It hardly seems a year but in some ways it seems 3 or 4’.

He told both parents that he had been round to see the Battalion Adjutant [Lt C.A. (Nobby) Clark, whom Sherriff respected very much, and who would become a firm friend after the war] to ask about the chances of a transfer to the Engineers, but he ‘did not seem very hopeful about getting the Commanding Officer’s permission to transfer’. Sherriff was a little doubtful himself, concerned that the new CO [Lt Col T H S Swanton, who, while Sherriff had been away from the Battalion, had taken over from Lt Col H S Tew, who had been injured in a riding accident] might be annoyed by his request, and it ‘might make him say: “Who is this officer? What is he doing?” and change us round…’ But he was still hoping, and he told his mother, as he had Pips the day before, that he was now reading mining books in his spare time.

He had been thinking of Christmas again, because Bundy had sent him the Xmas number of Punch. The pictures of the snow reminded him of walking back home from school as it was growing dark on Xmas Eve [!], and buying decorations for the dining room and drawing room: ‘If only the war is over by next Christmas I should like to go through all this again, however silly it may seem.’

He had just sent a party of his men off to the baths, where they ‘get a good hot wash and a change of underclothes.’ He, on the other hand, had just discovered some lice (having felt itchy the night before): ‘it was my own fault for not applying that Vermin Powder before – as I did not think I was troubled by them I neglected it’, but remedying his mistake, he had applied it thoroughly  and hoped it would ‘put a stop to their little games.’

[Next letter: 21 November]

Hoping for a Transfer

He told Pips that he had been to see the officer in charge of the Engineering Company to which he had been attached, to see if there was a chance of him being permitted to transfer – he was enjoying the work, and finding it interesting (especially the surveying). The officer had told him that he would do his best for him, if he could get the permission of his CO – but Sherriff feared that might prove something of a stumbling block. Nevertheless, he would go to the Battalion Adjutant the next day to see what might be done. In the meantime, one of the Engineers Officers had lent him some books on their work which he was beginning to read, since it would help him if he succeeded in his application.

He took the opportunity to thank Pips for the postcards he had sent him: ‘They served as a reminder that there are places where there are not shell holes everywhere – I am glad that you are able to get [bike] rides fairly frequently: they are a great tonic after incessant indoor work.’

[Next letters: 20 November]

Home Thoughts…

It had been a glorious day, he told his mother – cold and frosty, but fine for walking – and he and Morris [his servant] had been out for four hours getting some exercise. As they came back, and it started to get dark, and with the sun setting and the ‘cold, sharp air’, he was reminded of ‘the walks I have had at home through the dear old parks with you and Pips…there are little scenes and incidents that you see and experience here that remind you so much of home that you can almost imagine you are there: I went along a road today that was very much like the Cromwell Road [in Hampton Wick, near his home]’.

He always took time to get used to things, and after being in his dugout for over three weeks now, he had come to regard it as home: ‘I am sure I shall have a sort of lump in my throat when I have to leave it’. He would stay in it all winter, if he could:

‘It is hard to describe exactly the pleasure one gets from being alone a certain part of the time – when I can think without interruption and draw pictures for Bundy without imagining someone catches sight of them and wonders what you are doing, where you have your servant near at hand and you can call him and have a talk with him without any other officers in the room and where you manage everything yourself and gain experience of responsibility – I feel it is a pleasure I shall miss very much when I get back to my Battalion.’

He was still wishing he had more mining or engineering experience, to give himself a chance of transferring to the RE. The RE officers seemed so interested in their work, he thought, and they had other advantages – like permanent billets and good leave. He wished that he had put in for something more useful, but instead his ‘occupation only made me fit to be an infantry officer, and I should not grumble at my lot’. Nevertheless, he was resolved to try to become more proficient at the RE work. It was almost inevitable he felt, that, working on the surface of the earth, he should prefer working above it (flying) or below it (mining) – ‘it is natural that people prefer something they have not got’. But he also envied his mother the work that she was doing: ‘I do wish I had been trained as a doctor, so that I could help in the same work as you do – it is so much better than helping to make wounds.’

It wasn't just his mother who sent him parcels - Auntie Beattie [Beatrice, his mother's sister] did so as well. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/1/1/5/32]

It wasn’t just his mother who sent him parcels – Auntie Beattie [Beatrice, his mother’s sister] did so as well. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/1/1/5/32]

He apologised for sending her letters that often sounded so miserable – it seemed poor repayment for her lovely parcels, with peaches, and cream, and mittens and socks, ‘and, well, everything you have sent me.’ Perhaps the parcel had made him homesick, for he allowed himself a brief reverie:

‘It is now half-past nine – I imagine Pips has just settled down in front of the fire; you have gone up to your bedroom I expect and Bundy is sitting reading, and Puss curled up against the fender. I hope I shall be back to all this by next year.’

He left off writing at that point, and although he resumed a little more clear-eyed next morning (‘It is very sharp and frosty this morning – but very fine – true winter has started now’), he soon lapsed into longing and reminiscence once more, as he so often did in letters to his mother:

‘Keep cheerful always, and I will try to, and let’s both look forward to the day when I shall get home again with you and Pips, Bundy, Beryl [his sister] and the parks and Oxshott and the chickens, and everything else so dearly looked forward to.’

[Next letter: 20 November]

A burberry topcoat

It had begun to get chilly, and Sherriff told his mother that he and Gibson were thinking about buying a stove – but they were concerned that, if they were transferred away in the near future, it could turn out to be a waste of money. He hoped, though, that they would stay a while longer,  notwithstanding ‘the inconvenience of being occasionally shelled’. He told her, as he had Pips the day before, that he found the Engineers’ work fascinating, and he was going to try to learn more about it by following the RE officers: ‘I am always on the lookout for some branch of the service that would not be such a strain as the Infantry work is’. He was perfectly willing to work hard, for anything would be better than the ‘waiting and waiting that characterises the Infantryman’s work – nothing can be more arduous than that.’

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He was still suffering a bit from the cold he had contracted, but his spirits had been buoyed a little by a parcel from his mother, the main item in which was his burberry coat. He was sorry to ask for it, because he knew his mother had been wearing it, but it was much more suitable than his trench coat, which had proved ‘quite useless’. He was going to send the trench coat back to the shop, and see if he could have them replace it with a mackintosh for his mother.

He told her that the crispness of the air, and the ‘yellowness of the sun’ had brought back memories of the previous year, when he had just started training with the Artists Rifles [he had joined up on 20 November 1915]:

‘It reminded me of those mornings when I used to travel up by train every morning to train in Regents Park – how I would like to start and [have] all that lovely time over again. Do you remember how little things – like a drunk man, or having my name taken – used to worry me? If I could only have those ten months with the Artists over again how glad I should be.’

[Next letter: 17 November]

My nerves have suffered

Writing to Pips late in the evening, he recounted his day spent journeying into Bethune: ‘I find sitting in a shelter all day does one no good and you can’t feel well when you don’t do any exercise to keep you fit’. He had been given a lift part way by a ‘motor lorry’, but had then walked the remaining 5 miles. It had been a long time since he had seen such ‘out of the way articles’ as woollen socks, or gloves, or since he had seen a chemists or a greengrocer. He was not there for long before he started home, but first he called in to an Estaminet (which had a ‘special room for officers’), and enjoyed a 3-franc lunch in the company of a Major who ‘told me of our latest successes’.

He savoured the delights of walking through an untouched countryside:

‘It was a lovely day and the country, which is not naturally pretty, looked remarkably fresh for the time of the year; to see old French peasants pottering about in their gardens and fields gives a pleasant relief from the usual sights here – it is even a relief to see houses that have not been battered out of recognition, and gardens that have not been knocked in – yet however far one goes from the line there is always that inevitable shell hole in the garden wall, or in the road, or somewhere.’

Letter to Pips, 15 November 1916. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/1/1/3/110)

Letter to Pips, 15 November 1916. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/1/1/3/110)

His evident relief at being out in the countryside was the counterpart to the increased anxiety that had arisen from the shelling that had occurred in his area over the previous two days:

‘I am afraid that my nerves have suffered since I have been out here – I sometimes (especially when going through trenches alone at night) get very jumpy, and a missile going off near me has much more effect than when I first came out here – I suppose this will wear off in time, or at least I hope it will, or it may help me get home with “Shell-shock”.’

In the meantime he was thinking of trying to become a specialist in something – anything where there is a ‘real interest, instead of a monotonous waiting in filthy trenches, which is the work in quiet parts of the line’. He had always loved to specialise in something, so his main interest in his off-duty hours now was in trying to puzzle out which was the best specialist course to take. In the meantime, he would try to learn a bit about mining work by following the RE officers around, if they’d let him. ‘I don’t suppose I should ever be able to learn enough about the work to be transferred to the RE, but what does it matter trying – it can do no harm.’

[Next letter: 16 November]

I expect they think we are cowards

Sherriff was feeling unwell – a touch of influenza which made him want to lie down and sleep all the time – a practice which he did not consider to be very healthy. But his mother was not to worry, because he would take his compressed medicine, and, if he really felt bad, would visit the doctor straight away. The worst thing about the illness was that it seemed to affect his nerves:

‘They shelled this district again this morning and really I am quite ashamed of the way it makes me tremble. When I hear a shell whistle overhead I immediately get that sort of cold feeling all up my spine if you know what I mean, and my tongue feels all dry. Yesterday, they shelled the district just as I was sitting down to lunch and it immediately made me feel quite sick – with no appetite at all for dinner…I hope my nerves will improve, though, [as] it is not at all a pleasant feeling to get nervous so quickly and easily.’

A 'Minney' bursting. From Memories of Active Service, Vol 1, facing page 200. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/3/9/3/2)

A ‘Minney’ bursting. From Memories of Active Service, Vol 1, facing page 200. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/3/9/3/2)

After asking about her work at the hospital, and remarking on how much more he would rather be doing her job than his own, his thoughts quickly turned to his own nervousness once more:

I don’t know why it is, but some men seem to stroll about the trenches when they are shelling just as though nothing were happening – they must be made very differently to me, for it makes me tremble and breathe hard even if I just go round to the lavatories. Once, coming back, they sent a shrapnel shell whizzing over and [it] burst a bit behind us; I felt very much like running for my shelter when I saw a man climb up onto the parapet and look over as unconcerned as possible and say: “that was a near one”….This morning a flight of wild duck flew overhead and both armies began firing at them – unfortunately a lot of the bullets came down on our roof and round about which frightened me as much as anything.’

He noted that, while he had been bragging about how quiet his current job was, the recent shelling had changed his mind, and he and Gibson were now asking their servants to fill some sandbags with earth and put them on the roof of the dugout – ‘I expect they think we are cowards,’ he wrote.

[Next letter: 15 November]

Say a little prayer…

The much anticipated parcel had arrived: socks, chocolate biscuits, ginger and peppermints were all very welcome, he told his mother, but: ‘The cream! Well – it is almost too good to be true!’ The other thing he enjoyed about a parcel was that it was ‘a little mirror in which I can see home…I can see you getting that Peter Robinson box from your cupboard and getting all the articles together and wrapping them up – it’s as good as a Xmas stocking.’

The East Surreys had gone into the line again, so it seemed likely he would stay at the mine a little longer. The Germans had dropped some shells near him earlier in the day – ‘they went whistling over our dugout and falling crash! about 200 yards behind it.’ He told her that he had just sat down to dinner and it quite took away his appetite, because ‘I am afraid I am more nervous than the average.’ In part the problem came because he had enjoyed a quieter time in his present dugout, and ‘the sudden realisation that we were being shelled came as a sort of shock – it never having happened since I have been here I had begun to think we were absolutely out of harm’s way.’

The worst time was when he would go on duty, and have to walk in the direction of the front line, and ‘sometimes you hear a shell wizz overhead and come down behind you – it makes you feel sick sometimes and your breathing comes hard from fear or excitement.’ But sometimes, when faced with his fears of shelling, a little prayer would help:

I was walking up to the mine yesterday when an extra big Minnenwerfer shell fell somewhere in front of us where I had got to go – the crash was terrific and little pieces of earth and stone came whizzing all round, although the shell fell quite 200 yards away. For the moment I felt that I absolutely could not go on then I felt how absurd I was if any men saw me stand still and hesitate, so I said a little prayer asking that I might get through everything safely – and somehow this puts new courage in you…’

He was looking forward to the end of the war – to being able to walk without looking up at the sky for missiles all the time. He was convinced that, if peace could be made on equal terms, everyone would jump for joy. It was all very well for those in England to insist on ‘ a fight to the finish’ – but what exactly was that supposed to mean? ‘If peace was declared tomorrow,’ he wrote, ‘no matter whose favour it was in, I think Germans and English would come across to one another and weep tears of joy.’

[Next letter: 14 November]

Sherriff’s Dugout

Still enjoying his time in the mine, he was nevertheless chafing at the lack of certainty about how long the duty might continue. He would be happy if it went on for the duration of the war – he was enjoying the freedom it offered him [and no doubt the relative safety]. He told his mother that, when he had visited his own Company earlier that day they had told him that they were expecting him back any day – but he thought [hoped, probably] that they were only pulling his leg. He wished he could be told exactly how long he had left at the mine, rather than dealing with the possibility that he might be called away at any time.

Pips had asked him to describe his dugout, so Sherriff obliged:

‘We live in a shelter about 15ft long by 7ft broad. It is like a square hole dug into the ground, and thick sheets of corrugated iron placed over it – the door is on one broad side and used to consist of a square hole with iron girders on top; a little passage cut into the earth led to the trench. Inside (which, before we started renovating consisted of bare earth walls, which, showing signs of falling, we put good, strong wire over) we have on the wall two boxes nailed – one of wood without a door, in which we keep all tinned stuff, and the other being a tin, which has a lid, and “the rats don’t seem to be able to work out ‘ow to git in” (as Morris says) in which we keep all edibles.

James Whale's Design for the Dugout in Journey's End. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/6/13/4) and the David Lewis Estate.

James Whale’s Design for the Dugout in Journey’s End. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/6/13/4) and the David Lewis Estate.

We have put up some wooden shelves which tilt at such an angle that things placed on them very gently slide off. Nails on the wall serve to support sandbags containing the following articles: No.1 bag – books, magazines and papers; No.2 bag – all washing things in holdall; No.3 bag – spare underclothes; No.4 bag – various oddments.

As regards furniture – 2 stout wooden frames with wire nailed across form very comfortable beds, supported at each end by sandbags; a long board with empty sandbags on it serves as a table, with a narrower board on two petrol tins forming the seat – a wooden box on its end is used as a table, on its side as a chair – so taking it all round it is a comfortable enough little home, although the roof is by no means proof against bullets or shell, but I think it would stop shrapnel splinters.

After the dugout caved in we made several improvements, a wooden frame we put in the door, and we put wire round the walls with empty sandbags hanging down behind. “You’ve only got ter paint Abrihim and a few others in to make it look like ‘ampton Court,” said Morris (who, by the way, lives in Molesey) as he surveyed his work of sandbag-hanging with some admiration.’

He told his mother that he had been into the local town shopping, and arranging baths for his men. He had bought some peaches and pears, some lobster, chocolate, and also 6 eggs, although two had broken, to make a raw omelette at the bottom of his pocket. When he had called into the Company he had received no mail – no letters or packages – but he was eagerly awaiting the one his mother had sent – with some socks, and ‘all sorts of delicious things’: ‘It is good of you to send them, dear – it is almost worth being out here to receive your letters and parcels.’

He had received news from home, both from Pips and from Bundy [his brother], telling him how the winds had blown the apples and leaves from the trees in the garden. This prompted him to reminisce about the times he would come home from school to see the garden looking just as he imagined it now. But there was more:

‘I also associate this time of the year with the time after I had left school and began to realise to the fullest extent the beauty of history and literature and when I used to go for cycle rides with Clayton [a master who had arrived at KGS in 1911, and who, in 1914, when Sherriff was unhappy at his job as a clerk with Sun Insurance, had offered advice on how to become a schoolmaster] and he used to tell me lots of things about history which he would not tell me in school for fear of making the work too much like play.’

He proceeded to repeat his ambitions for when he returned after the war – to furnish his room in Tudor style; to make a library of historical books, while continuing to collect stamps and coins as his hobbies; to travel to view historic sights around the country, in places such as York, and Hadrian’s Wall; and perhaps, one day, ‘to sit for a degree at London University – it only requires careful study to get an M.A. or B.A. in history’.

He had decided not to pursue, at this point, his aim of joining the Flying Corps, feeling that it would be difficult to get the Adjutant to agree to a transfer, and it might prejudice his chances of staying at the mine. But if he were to return to his Battalion soon, he might then consider it. He felt that there was no chance of any leave on the horizon – although it was notionally due after three months, there were many officers in front of him in the queue. But he told his mother that, even if he did not manage to be home in time for Christmas, they could enjoy their own when he did finally come home:

‘I think the idea of Father Christmas is one of the most beautiful legends man has ever thought of – what a pity man does not give his attention to these things instead of to war – yet I suppose we must have war to appreciate these things’.

 [Next letter: 12 November]

 

The ‘Mending the Dugout’ Skit

‘We have now got our dugout in some order again, ‘ he told Pips, but it had taken them three days of hard work.

It had all started on Tuesday (it was now Friday), when he had gone into Bethune with Morris to do some shopping, and to pick up any letters or parcels that might be waiting at Company HQ. He had also taken the chance to have a bath, and get money out for the men, but ‘as I started back down the long trench which leads to the district where we lived it came on to rain and poured faster and faster as I went along. The walk was 4 miles…and I arrived soaked to the skin and found…that the rain had caused the trenches to fall in in many places. At last I arrived back and found the trench which branched off from the main trench had fallen in and I had to climb over masses of soft earth – and what a sight for you to see arriving home drenched!’

Bethune - Before the War. From Memories of Active Service, Vol 2, facing page 388. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/3/9/3/4)

Bethune – Before the War. From Memories of Active Service, Vol 2, facing page 388. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/3/9/3/4)

‘The sandbags on each side of the door had fallen in and the railway lines, which served as girders, were hanging like the sword of Damocles over the door – the sandbags had fallen inwards and covered our neatly dug out floor with damp, rotten looking earth.’

Gibson had already gone off to the mine, so he and Morris crawled inside, to find it as ‘unfriendly-looking’ as the outside: ‘the earth walls had dropped in places and pieces were peeling off as we stood in there, so, as my servant suggested that the “place looked all of a screw and weren’t very safe to stay in”, we clambered out.’

Sherriff had then gone up to the mine to ask the RE officers if they could lend one of their men, which they did, and with a number of other volunteers from Morris’s dugout they made the door sufficiently safe for him to spend the night inside – ‘but what an awful night it was’. After he had some supper (which Morris had handed through the door, because, as he put it,”e and the plates couldn’t both get through together’) he had crawled into bed, and spent the rest of the night watching the earth crumbling away from the walls, and wondering if the whole structure would come down round about him. In the event, most of it stayed in place, ‘except for a big piece of the corner falling in and revealing the sky above’.

Bethune - After the War. From Memories of Active Service, Vol 2, facing page 388. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/3/9/3/4)

Bethune – After the War. From Memories of Active Service, Vol 2, facing page 388. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/3/9/3/4)

The whole of the next day they spent trying to shore up the dugout. ‘I cannot describe the chaos that then occurred,’ he wrote to Pips, ‘ – it suggested a good skit for Harry Tate [a well-known music hall comedian] – “Mending a Dugout”‘. Having secured all the materials they needed from the RE, and bringing all the necessary timber and wire inside, ‘it became so crowded that you did nothing but fall over in the attempts to get over piles of empty and filled sandbags.’ Then they had to lever up the door, which they did by piling up sandbags, and then ‘all getting on the end of an iron bar’, and while the girder was propped up, Morris would try to find a wedge to put in place between the girders and the sandbags, but the only wood he could find tended to ‘squash up like a sponge’ when it took the weight from above. To make matters worse, he then struggled to get out the door because the sandbags were in the way, ‘reminding me of the historic man who built a house from the inside and omitted the doors and windows’.

That was enough description for one day, he told Pips, since he now had to write to his brother Bundy, whose birthday it was [he was turning 17], but he promised more on his dugout woes the following day.

[Next letter: 11 November]