He was fretting again about possibly being relieved in the near future – something he viewed as ‘practically certain’, since he had been told as much by an Officer [though he does not say which one]. What annoyed him most, he told his mother, was that it might be because:

‘…our C.O. saw two of my men walking about untidy and he immediately concluded the whole party were like that – how I hate those two men for being such idiots as to be seen like that – it is perhaps also a bit my fault for not watching them more – but when it is in my power to make men’s time easier I love to do so as the poor men have such a hard time usually.’

Contemplating the possibility of his return to the Battalion seems to have sparked another sentimental episode in him, and he again reminisced about the walks he and his mother had taken together, as well as confessing that the nostalgic recollections of their last hours together had resulted in him ‘nearly [dropping] tears all over my last letter to you’:

‘I know it is very silly of me, but the more I think how hard you worked to make every moment of my time happy before I left, the more I feel so helpless to repay it properly: how you did everything in your power to make that leave one long run of happiness I know only too well, and how brave you were on the last day when you were trying to keep my spirits up…’

Dick Webb, from a cutting in Sherriff’s scrapbook. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/9/12)

Briefly turning to practical matters he enquired after his closest school friend, Dick Webb, about whose wounding his mother had included a cutting in an earlier letter: ‘Do you know how he is getting on?’ he asked. ‘I must write to Mr Webb and ask: even although he were wounded seriously I can’t help thinking him lucky to get home.’ [Sherriff was, at this point, sadly unaware that his old friend had died of his wounds in hospital on 10 October].

But before closing up the letter, there was a final burst of sentimentality:

‘What I want to try and tell you its how happy you have always made everything for me – no one could ever have had such a happy childhood, boyhood, office days and Army days as I did whilst you were always so near me to cheer me up and encourage me in everything, and I have always owed the greater part of my happiness to you dear, as a companion in walks, as an adviser when in trouble and as a comforter when I have been ill, and now is the time, when I am separated from you for the first time, that I look back and appreciate all this more than I have ever done before.’

H hoped that the time would soon come when he could return home and repay her by making her ‘as happy as possible’.

[Next letter: 2 December]