Monthly Archives: November 2016

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)

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

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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)

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…

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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

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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.

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

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‘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)

‘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)

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]

Too busy to write

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There was still no time for letter writing because, as he told his mother, ‘We are still very busy getting our dugout in order again: the rain caused the sides to fall in and the door was in great danger for some time – but after working hard at it for the whole of yesterday and also today it is now beginning to assume its old shape again…you can imagine the calamity caused rather a stoppage in our business and I am very busy getting things in order again – so, dear, you won’t mind if I end this letter now as I must help mend our dugout.’

[Next letter: 10 November]

Cave-in at the dugout

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‘Just a very hasty line to tell you our dugout has fallen in and we have been hard at work all day mending it – which has afforded plenty of amusement but much inconvenience as all our belongings are stacked up together in a heap and difficult to get at.’

And that was all he had time to write to Pips before going off to get a wash before going on duty. A more detailed account would have to wait until he had a little more time to spare.

[Next letter: 9 November]

Twelve more days – with luck

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‘We were not relieved this morning, as I half expected to be,’ he wrote to Pips, ‘so we shall have another 12 days probably – which I should not object to in the least if we have as happy a time as we have had for the last 12 days.’ He was finding that the time slipped by faster than he expected, and he was not getting as much done in his free time as he had expected. He had, of course, spent his time in reading books and writing some stories and letters, but other duties – like inspections, censoring, or entertaining the RE officers – tended to get in the way.

A brief letter to his mother made much the same point, while adding a hint of his fatalism: ‘we cannot have everything go well always – this war has taught me to appreciate the pleasant moments when they are here, and not always [to be] looking forward to them.’ And he closed his letter with some advice [which was one part Marcus Aurelius, and one part the advice that his mother had given to him when he left for France]:

‘Goodbye for the present, dear – always be brave and cheerful and throw all your interest into your work. I know it will ease your mind when you are miserable dear, and I like to think you are doing this.’

[Next letter: 7 November]

Dear old Selsey

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‘It is very windy tonight,’ he wrote to his mother, ‘and I have been down to get rations and walking over some of the broken ground leaning against the wind reminded me of Selsey – dear old Selsey. I am wondering when the next time will be when you and I are sitting on that rickety little train planning walks to Pagham etc.’

The Sherriff bungalow, Sleepy Hollow (in white) – probably before the war. (Thanks to Marilyn Smith)

He thanked her for a letter he had just received, noting that he was all the more appreciative because she took the time to write it after a hard day at the hospital. ‘I am so glad you are doing that work, dear,’ he wrote, ‘ – sometimes when I see a poor, groaning man being carried down on a stretcher I think that you may be going to take care of him – you must love your work dear, I only wish I could help heal wounds instead of always being ready to make them.’

He was still hoping to be with the RE party for another 6 to 12 days: ‘I do not object a bit to the length of time I remain here, as compared with the arduous work in the line this is a rest.’ His fingers kept dipping into the almonds and raisins she had sent him: ‘I can’t stop nibbling at them – 2 RE officers came in this morning and they couldn’t help nibbling too – they said they hadn’t tasted almonds and raisins since last Xmas.’

He told her how much he enjoyed the evenings when he could be alone in the dugout, able to do exactly what he wanted, to sit and gaze at the ceiling and say nothing to anyone; and at bedtime he enjoyed ‘nestling down into my wooly sleeping bag with fleece lining in and a wooly cap (everything nice and wooly)’. And he counselled her not to be miserable: ‘I am not miserable at present, dear – trust me to let you know when I am miserable.’

[Next letters: 6 November]

The Uniform of an Officer

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Sherriff had been at the ration dump, because his men had ‘not been getting their proper share’. Modest as ever, he told his mother that, although his presence may not have made much difference, the ‘presence of the uniform of an officer did’, and they got their proper rations.

Sherriff in the uniform of a 2nd Lieutenant in the East Surreys. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/6/4/2/1)

He and Gibson were still living a quiet life, ‘away from our Regiments’ [about which he was probably very happy, since the 9th East Surreys had gone back into the line, in Hulluch (quite nearby) on 31 October, and were still there]. They got on well together, and had done from the beginning, because of their time together in the Artists. But she should not think there were no risks: ‘There are times when walking about the line when you get a rifle grenade or a bullet whizz past you, which makes your heart go “pit a pat”…I don’t want to make you think I have a fearfully risky job, because I have not, but I don’t want you to think that I am sitting in an armchair all day.’

He was not sure how much longer he might be attached to the RE [Royal Engineers], but he was hoping he might stay for some time. Apart from wading about in the mud up in the front line every other night he was enjoying it: ‘It is very pleasant being able to do just what you like and managing your little body of men and seeing to your own meals, especially when you have a jolly good cook, as my servant is turning out to be. I have never had a piece of steak at Flemings or an egg either, so well done as he does it – you are the only cook he can’t beat yet.’

Another parcel had come while he was writing to her, and he was looking forward to the ginger cakes at tea, having already started on the almonds and raisins (‘which made things seem very Xmassy’). It would be ‘fine’ if he were to be home for Christmas, he wrote – though he hardly expected it, since very few Regiments (especially in the Infantry) offered leave within three months. But if it did not come, then they should simply have to start looking forward again – and in the meantime, the addition of some socks, pencils and peppermints in his next parcel would at least help keep him comfortable.

[Next letter: 5 November]

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