Writing to his mother from the Officers’ Rest Station, Sherriff told her that the weather had been cold, but healthy, and that he had been watching some skaters on a lake where, in parts , the ice was six inches thick. He still felt guilty at being ‘back in the quiet while his friends were up in the line’, but fate had paid him back a little:

‘Yesterday as I went down the garden of the rest camp to the lavatories I slipped on the ice and went down with a hearty bang on my back and cut my hand rather nastily – luckily the RAMC in attendance immediately pounced on me to practice on and bound it all up – it has been rather painful today – throbbing, you know – but I hope it will soon get better.’

Letter to Mother, 29 January 1917. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/1/1/2/142)

Even in the rest station, however, he was finding it difficult to get thoughts of the line out of his head:

‘It seems that the further away from it [I am] the more it preys upon my mind and I feel I simply can’t go up again – of course the rest here may work a change and I am hoping it will but if I feel no better after a week here I will speak to the Doctor about it I think. Don’t worry dear, as I have said before, as I will be able to look after myself and if I have to go into the line again shortly I will make up my mind to bear it alright when the time comes.’

He apologised that his letters to her were shorter than those he wrote home to Pips, but explained that the latter were meant for everyone, whereas the letters to her were private – a means of expressing all his worries and troubles (‘exaggerated as you know only I can’). As regards his present situation, he told her that:

‘I feel extremely like the times when I did not want to go to school and worked up a worried expression and said I felt sick etc., but now, in a greater sense I feel the same thing – nothing bodily wrong, only a great mental tiredness’.

[Next letter: 30 January]

Staying at the Officers rest station, and obviously with time on his hands, Sherriff took the opportunity to send a long, descriptive letter home to Pips.

He started with an account of his surroundings:

‘I have a most comfortable bed-sitting room to myself in a French hotel just opposite the rest station; the latter is a big French house in an old fashioned narrow cobbled street – the house is absolutely clean and airy – this is the Mess or Club, where there is a dining room and a very comfortable lounge and reading room – also a card room with a piano and all other sources of amusement.’

He then went on to describe his usual routine:

‘You sleep in a nice bed with such advanced signs of civilisation as sheets. At 8 o’clock, or 8:30, a servant appears and wakes you, bringing hot water. You get up and wash and go over to breakfast – tea or coffee, eggs and bacon, or fish – practically anything you fancy. This is between 9:00 and 9:30 – after that the time is quite free to you when  you can either go into the lounge and read, or you can go out. This morning…I chose the latter, and went for a good walk with two other officers…At 1 o’clock is lunch – we had stewed rabbit and treacle pudding and bread and cheese etc – all done in the most lavish style. The afternoon is quite free and I spent the time exploring the town…At 4 o’clock is tea and you can spend the rest of your time just as you like providing you are in your billet by 11 o’clock. Dinner at 7:30 with no two-course restrictions as I believe prevail in England now…The place is just like an English hotel, where your time is your own, an RAMC doctor is in charge of it and RAMC men are in attendance – just now there are about 20 officers here…recovering…from small wounds, nervous breakdowns etc, from various Regiments, Artillerymen, RE, Infantry etc…’

By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/1/1/3/139)

Sherriff told Pips that he would ‘not have the slightest objection to being here “for duration”‘, although he understood it would only be for a few days while his teeth were seen to. But he felt the place was exactly what he wanted:

‘a few days rest like this – I am not suffering exactly from shell-shock, but the last 4 months has tried my nerves rather – I feel absolutely well and cheerful when resting – it is the continual bang! bang! of the line that makes me shaky…’

He went on to describe the town in which he was staying (though censorship prevented him naming it), and how much of a relief it was to move from the battered towns and villages nearer the front, ‘with the continual crash of the guns’, into:

‘a quiet old fashioned town away from the noise – where all that breaks the silence at night is the old clock on the church – whose deep joined musical bell seems to ring just when it thinks, showing the utmost contempt for all regularities of time.’

He had explored the town’s church (‘over-decorated’, he judged) and its town hall, its old market square, and narrow cobbled streets, noting ‘a canal or river running through under the road between old houses rising with walls sheer out of the water.’ It was a perfect place for a rest, ‘combining healthy walks in picturesque country with fascinating rambles round old historical streets and scenes’. In addition the club contained a fine library of serious books (‘all, alas, in French’), but he had no need of them because he was still working his way through Scott’s The Antiquary.

He grumbled a little that he had been forced to come in his dirty trench clothes – he would have appreciated a pair of clean trousers, but there had been no time. He had travelled by train, in ‘a big box truck, shut in with one side having a broad opening for access’ [his description sounds like a French forty and eight box car as shown], and been accompanied by an assortment of other passengers, including a priest, a French officer who looked like Napoleon, a group of French soldiers, all dressed differently (‘who ever saw two French soldiers dressed the same?’ he asked), some women and children and a couple of other men. He described the details of the journey at some length, highlighting the idiosyncrasies of his fellow passengers, as well as of the French railways system. This was the first time he had been in a place where the French outnumbered the English, so he ‘had been at liberty to examine their nature more leisurely’: he pronounced them ‘a queer sort of people whose habits are much to be admired and despised.’

[Next letter: 29 January]

Sherriff wrote to his mother from the ‘officers’ rest station’, to which he had moved after spending a day in hospital. He was now waiting to see a dentist: ‘I am now some way back in a fine old-fashioned town which I am anxious to look around tomorrow when it is light.’ He told her that the other patients appeared largely to be officers who were recovering from minor complaints (such as ‘slight wounds, trench fever’ etc). He was in a very nice billet where he would sleep, but the men would come together for all meals at the Mess. He had not yet had time to explore, but he presumed there would be reading and writing rooms.

He planned to investigate the Mess later, after finishing up his letter, but thought he would turn in quite early, and ‘get some good nights rest if possible’. He went on to explain why, although he had been reluctant to go sick, he felt it was the right thing to do:

‘…I feel that the last 4 months continual (or almost continual) trench life has rather told on my nerves – you know that I am naturally rather a nervy person, and I think that it tells more on some than others – I really feel very mean in coming to a place like this while all my fellow officers are in the trenches, but I felt it best for myself and the men, as to have a nervy officer, who naturally would not feel very confident, in the line with them would not inspire them much if I showed any signs of it.’

Meanwhile, the weather was staying ‘fine and frosty’, and although it was bitterly cold, at least it was very healthy, with ‘no mud and slush’. He hoped, if he was to stay at the rest station for a few days, that he would be able to ‘get some good walks, which I am so fond of.’

[Next letter: 27 January]

Sherriff wrote home to both mother and father today, letting them know that he had gone sick because of his neuralgia. As he told Pips:

‘The cold weather [gave] me a return of that neuralgia I suffered from about 2 years ago, and I found it extremely trying when on my long hours of duty – the change from the hot air in the dugout to the cold air and vice versa brought it on badly – so I went down to see the doctor who advised having my teeth seen to, and as the trouble had made me a bit shaky he sent me down to the Field Ambulance, where my adventures began, and I have passed through so many different stations that I can hardly remember where I began now.’

He was now in an old convent converted into a hospital, waiting to see the dentist. He had a comfortable bed, one of 5 in a big room with a stove, and heating pipes wrapping round the walls. There was a table and chairs too, and he had nothing to do but ‘rest and read and write’. He was being treated well (‘good meals, etc’), but he was not pleased at being there. It was his first time going sick in the army, and he hoped it would be his last, but he thought he had been right to come, as ‘the neuralgia had made me rather nervy and I felt that I had lost my confidence a bit too – a fatal thing for the men to notice.’ He told his mother that he regretted that his leaving the line would inevitably mean more work for his fellow officers [in fact, part of his fellow officers’ ‘work’ on this particular day was a daylight raid on German trenches – most probably the model for the raid in Journey’s End – see here for an account]

Raleigh (David Manners) and Osborne (Ian Maclaren) prepare themselves for the raid in Journey’s End (Gainsborough/Tiffany, 1930)

He was obviously thinking of them quite a bit in hospital, as the letter to his mother makes clear:

‘An invalid’s life is alright in a way, but I think I prefer the society of the other officers of my regiment and while I am speaking of my fellow officers I must really tell you what a wonderful lot they are – I have never met a nicer set of men and there is not one of them that I would not be proud to introduce to you as a friend and as a matter of fact every officer out here is nice – I don’t know what happens to all the nasty men, I suppose they give up being nasty or don’t come out here. But all the officers I have met – whether RE, or Artillery or Infantry, and doctors and chaplains –  there are none who are undesirable, or at least I have not met any yet who are. Perhaps there is a kind of companionship amongst them that makes them nice, but you never hear them quarrel like they used to in offices and the Skiff Club – no face pushing goes on, and I am afraid Mr Herbert would find very little scope for practicing this famous speciality of his.’

The time in hospital also appears to have given him time to think about what exactly it was in the war that he found so difficult, and he set out his views for his father:

‘It is no good dwelling on the awfulness of it all, for you know it only too well – the men who go up for a tour of duty in the trenches go up absolutely resigned;  there [are] no fiery displays of hate as in England by certain people who have never been here, they go because they must – and although they are always cheerful they go with that thought that, although there is every possibility of them coming back safely, someone isn’t.  Any impartial onlooker – seeing our men going up to the trenches with such cheerfulness would never dream of the things they are to endure before they come out again.  Everyone has a different temperament I know, and I may have got a more imaginative one than suits the necessities of trench life, but I must say that I cannot conceive of anything that has occurred in history that puts men to a greater test than this – think of anything that is acknowledged to have been dreadful – the battles with the dear old cannon ball which you can let fall 5 yards from you without harming you – then battles were all over in an hour or so and while on it went thick and fast – here it is the awful expectancy which is most trying – it is that that tells on different temperaments – some may not feel it at all, to others it is torture.’

[Next letter: 26 January]