‘Who could not be happy,’ he asked his mother, ‘after spending 8 days in constant danger, great or small, where you had always to keep an eye open for shells and other missiles, and then to come into a quiet little village where you can walk along open roads and across green fields, where the ground is smooth and not churned up by shell holes and encumbered with wire entanglements.’
He was absolutely happy, he told her, ‘with a nice comfortable tent…and a cosy little room in a farmhouse to mess in’. He wrote in similarly high spirits to Pips, noting that, although the wind was chilly, his tent was sheltered and warm, ‘with the sun shining on the canvas’. They would remain in rest until Tuesday, ‘when we are off again.’ He told him about his long walks the day before, through the ‘flat, though interesting countryside,’ which was prevented from being monotonous by the ‘women with funny looking bonnets working in the fields.’ He had stumbled across a football match, and English soldiers were everywhere (but not so the French). Everything was peaceful and calm, except for a ‘faint rumble rumble…from the distant south, where that rumble has been going on consistently for over 3 months, almost without a pause.’ [The Somme].
Percy High (rear left, with pipe). From ‘Memories of Active Service’, Vol 1, facing p 22. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/3/9/3/2)
When he had returned from his walk the previous evening he had attended a concert organised by the Chaplain (‘it was remarkably good, some very fine comedians and singers were amongst them’), and this morning he had gone to Church parade in the very same hall. He was planning another long walk this afternoon, and wished he could go with some of the men in his Platoon (‘some seem such gentlemen’), but he felt it would compromise discipline. Instead, as he told his mother, he was planning to go with Percy High, ‘that man whom I came over with – he is a good reliable sort of man who reminds me of Uncle Syd [who was married to his maternal aunt Alice] – it is funny that I always prefer older men as companions…I find they are more interesting and can advise you.’ [Percy, a schoolteacher, may well have been one of the models for Uncle in Journey’s End.]
He told his mother how much he had enjoyed her parcel – how its contents had reminded him of old times – and how happy he would be to have more lovely ‘eatables’ from home (and some more vermin powder, of course). Although ‘this little rest has been as happy a time as I have had in the army’, he was still longing for home, and was already making plans (as he told both parents) to do up his little study in ‘Tudor style, with a good bookcase and make a collection of choice books.’ In the meantime, he would make the most of the cake and the cigarettes that he had just received from his Auntie Beattie, which, he was quick to assure his mother [her sister], he was just about to write and thank her for.
[Next letters: 25 October]