‘We arrived back at our billets at a village in rear late on Wednesday night – and what a relief to at last get back again to where you can walk in freedom along open roads without fear of being suddenly shot at.’

He told his mother he was living in a tent, but was quite comfortable, in the same village that they had left 16 days earlier [Estrée-Cauchy]. He hoped they would stay there for a few days at least, and promised her long letters every day, as long as he was not off on working parties, like the one he was due to supervise that very evening.

Battalion HQ at Estrée-Cauchy. From Memories of Active Service, facing page 39. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/3/9/3/2)

She had sent him a parcel that had been returned to her because it was overweight – ‘what a shame you had to unpack it again, but it only shows you were too keen on letting me have plenty of things and thank you, dear, for that.’ As luck would have it, a parcel arrived as he was writing his letter, and he paused to inspect its comments: pastry from his mother (which he had shared round straightaway, while keeping some back to eat while on the working party); chocolate walnuts from his brother Bundy (‘which remind me of the dear days I used to get home and bask on the lawn while Bundy went across to get some’); and chocolate biscuits, peppermints and ‘everything that is nice: thank everybody very much indeed for me dear.’

There were just a couple of things he still needed, including a cover for his watch, and some more of the Boots anti-vermin powder which had been so effective in warding off lice (he had suffered much less from them than the other men). He would need some socks soon enough, but would let her know when. In the meantime, he was still waiting to hear what she thought about him joining the Royal Flying Corps: it sounded interesting to him, but ‘I really cannot make up my mind yet – I am afraid if I put in they will think I do it to get out of the Infantry – but I will wait and hear what you think.’

[Next letter: 21 October]

Last night’s duty had been very lively – the Germans had sent over some trench mortar shells, caving in the trenches behind Ersatz crater [see the trench map posted on 11 October]. He told Pips that he had to call out 6 men and a corporal to dig out the trench: ‘It is a shame to route them out in the middle of the night…but it has got to be done as we cannot have a trench fallen-in in the day time or the snipers would spot us climbing over.’

This morning things were quiet, and the beautiful clear day encouraged aerial activity. ‘There was a continual fire kept up against each other’s aeroplanes, but damage is rarely done to them as they fly so high and it is fascinating to see the little white puffs of smoke appear all round the machines.’ All the time on duty he had to keep looking up for Minnies, ‘like a thrush…when he is pulling worms out of a lawn – he keeps stopping and looking up to see if all is well’. Anxiety about the Minnies may have been part of the reason that, as he told his mother, ‘we have several cases of men suffering from nerves, and really it is enough to make them suffer – but the rest will do them good.’

Sherriff’s sketch of Vimy Ridge. Memories of Active Service, page 97. By permission of the Surrey History Centre, Ref: 2332/3/9/3/2

He told his father that both sets of trenches were ‘chiefly built up of sandbags, and each holds the opposite crests of a hill, the top being between the two lines. Thousands of men were lost on both sides in driving the Germans over this crest and the way he fought for the ground he lost may be judged by the fearful destruction he left behind.’ [In fact the ‘hill’ was Vimy Ridge, and while he could not say so at the time, he later sketched out what he meant.]

He was still angling for goodies in his parcels – ginger cakes again,  or preserved ginger he told his mother, assuring her that, while all the parcels were shared in the Mess, ‘I think my parcels are best of course.’ He told her that he was very comfortable in the dugout, with lots of books and papers, and good food. The gramophone was still going strong as well, and ‘is a great thing for cheering you up’, although he would like to hear something more classical instead of just ragtime.

There was no chance of leave anytime soon, he told Pips: there were men who had already been out for six months who had not yet been back home. But he was trying to be as philosophical as possible. He might get home wounded or sick, or he might make it through unscathed (‘which has got to fall to the lot of a certain number out here’); but if the worst happened, it would only be, as Marcus Aurelius said, ‘a piece of nature’s work, and all nature’s work is well planned and necessary.’ In the meantime, he would just keep on ticking off the days until the time of peace came. He had decided that he would not, however, be keeping a diary (beyond a list of the names and places to which he was sent): instead, ‘These letters will form my chief diary’.

[Next letter 18 October]

‘There is no glory or heroism in war now,’ he wrote to his mother. He wished, instead, that he lived back in ‘the days of old Greece or Rome, when they fought on the open ground and not in muddy ditches like we do now.’

Letter to mother, 15 October 1916. By Permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/1/1/2/93)

He had begun writing his letter to her after his duty, which had ended just before 3:00pm. He had been keeping his eyes out for ‘Minnies’, as always, but had also been watching the firing which went on at aeroplanes (unsuccessfully). It had been a beautiful day, and the valley below was clearer than he had seen it before, but ‘it is pitiful…to see a valley that was once probably beautiful now a wreck, with little skeleton woods and battered villages everywhere.’

It was no worse, though, than he had prepared himself for before he came, so he was ‘contented’ with his lot. But he preferred to ‘watch the days go by, which bring us nearer to peace and picnics in Oxshott woods again.’

[Next letters: 16 October]

‘Tonight I crawled out onto No Man’s Land,’ he told Pips, ‘and had a look at our wire entanglements – nothing can be more illustrative of present warfare. No Man’s Land…is a mass of shapeless shell-holes – in one is a battered steel helmet, in another a broken rifle and everywhere crumpled up wire entanglements in which you get wound up and fall over and expect a sniper to hear you…I went out with a corporal to see how thick the wire was, but I spent most of the time wondering if anyone was going to see us.’

A photo of No Man’s Land, taken from Memories of Active Service, facing page 141. By Permission of the Surrey History Centre.

He had been telling Pips about the routine of a nighttime tour of duty, and how it was his job to make sure none of the sentries were dozing – although this was unlikely, since his presence was usually announced by  ‘an army of rats which have been routed out by the noise,[which] run along in front of you trying to find holes to get in.’ The sentries were often nervy, and  the officers got nervy too, although they had to try not to show it.

The importance of looking calm for the men was something he emphasised to his mother as well: ‘through all the little tragedies that happen each day in men being killed and wounded you have to try and show to the men that you are taking it all calmly and you must be so careful not to show any weakness.’ He told her that he did not fear death –  ‘it is only a natural thing and everything natural is good [a philosophy he undoubtedly picked up from reading Marcus Aurelius] – but that what he hated was ‘the suspense of waiting for these shells [the ‘Minnies’] to come and when they are up in the air the excitement of running along to judge their fall takes away fear for the minute – it is after the explosion that you feel cold and frightened all over – and then is the time you have got to smile to reassure the men.’ He told Pips about them, too, noting that he spent his daytime tours of duty scanning the horizon: ‘Can you imagine what it is like to stand in a narrow trench and watch great things 2 feet long and about a foot round shoot up in the air, looking like a little piece of pencil the height is so great to which it goes – it then turns and shoots down towards earth whilst we all run along in different directions and screw up into a corner and wait for the bang and then  a shower of dirt about 5 seconds after. It is just like judging a high skyer in a cricket match except that you have to get as far from it as possible instead of under it.’

There had been a lot of them that very morning, and one of his men had been killed. He barely mentioned it to Pips (and only tangentially to his mother), but his later memoir shows that he was deeply affected by it. Maybe that lay behind his suggest to Pips that they should not seek to annoy the Germans by shelling: ‘the Germans are usually content to be left alone if we do not annoy them – but I suppose we have to show we are their enemies, though goodness knows none of us want to fight them and I am sure they don’t want to fight us.’

[Next letter: 15 October]

After ending a 2 3/4 hour duty at midday, Sherriff settled into his dugout to  write two more letters home. He could hear the German shells falling above him, but was confident that their dugout, tunnelled into the chalk hillside, could withstand the enemy ‘strafe’. And besides, their ammunition stores must be limited, since ‘we seldom get more than 10-20 shells a day’.  [The Battalion diary confirms that the Germans had sent over about 20 trench mortars, but the British replied ‘very vigorously…and speedily silenced him.’]

His dugout was a room in a long gallery of deeply dug burrows, with rooms communicating by long low passages with beams across (‘to knock our heads against’). He and two others slept in the long dugout where they all messed, while the other officers slept in a room nearby. Each room had a stairway leading out, ‘down which you hear men tobogganing when a German shell comes near.’

From Memories of Active Service, Vol 1, facing page 98; with permission of the Surrey History Centre)

His servant had obtained an old wire reel to act as a table, and provided him with a ‘pail of muddy water out of a shell hole to wash in’. They had a gramophone which, although he did not care for them as a rule, helped the time to pass.

His next spell of duty would be from 8:30 till 10:30 in the evening, and he told his father that, while a total of 6 3/4 hours a day might not seem much, it was ‘quite sufficient, as it is very arduous work going round seeing that the sentries are alert and usually catching them dozing, and besides this you must be perpetually on the alert for shells and grenades, and you must be ready to run along and dodge them’.

He told his mother that he was fine bodily, but that ‘mentally I feel rather tired and worried.’ He had been tremendously cheered, though, by the arrival of some letters from home (including from his brother, Bundy), and a package from his mother containing ‘my favourite chocolate, my favourite ginger cakes…those cigarettes, a packet of peppermints and, in short, everything I could have wished for’. He had shared the ginger cakes at Mess the previous evening, but he was keeping the chocolate for himself.

He apologised to his mother, for not having sent her birthday wishes in time for her to receive the letter on the 14th (her 45th birthday) – but he was sending her a cheque with which to buy herself a nice ring, and ‘a little scarlet pimpernel which I found calmly growing on the side of a communication trench near the front line’  It was a flower he had picked when returning from his night in the line with Captain Penrose, and, four years later, would find a place in his Memories of Active Service.

[Next letters: 14 October]

He wrote home to both his parents today, letting them know that he had now started his first tour of duty in the front line. He told his mother that they had arrived the previous morning (Tuesday), and that he had been detailed to bring up the last platoon with their cookers  – not an easy job since the cookers were bulky and filled with wood,, and not easy to carry along narrow trenches. He was unhappy that his Company had been landed with a rather bad piece of trench, perhaps because their Captain was the senior of the Company Commanders. Here is his sketch, showing how close they were to the Germans – especially in the sap at one end, and the crater posts at the other.

Sherriff’s sketch of the trenches on Vimy Ridge (Memories of Active Service, Vol 1, facing p99; by permission of the Surrey History Centre)

He was writing at 3:00pm, having just finished a 2 3/4 hour duty, when ‘everything was rather quiet, after a noisy morning’. He explained to his parents the duties he would have: roughly 2 hours by day, 3 hours by night, and two additional hours at ‘Stand-to’, [which took place twice a day, roughly at dawn and dusk, when every man in the battalion would take his place in the trench for an hour, in case of attack: the Germans did the same, so for two hours every day there were two lines of men, stretching from the Channel to the Alps, gazing across No Man’s Land at each other.]

He found the duty arduous, watching, as he did, for the appearance of Minnies, which the Germans sent over regularly, causing damage to the British lines, and meaning ‘constant working parties, busy all day.’ But he tried to be stoic about it: ‘it is very hard to get used to these things, but the time has got to pass.’ And besides, he now, at last, had the comfort of letters from home (some of which had previously gone astray), and a ‘good, deep, dugout’ in which to read them. He also had Marcus Aurelius and Old Mortality to cheer him up, so he was not yet hopelessly fed-up. In fact, as hen told his father, he didn’t think he would reach that stage anywhere, as ‘I possess a certain amount of Philosophy which I can always apply when necessary.’

He was still looking forward to the end of his 8 day stretch, and to returning to that village behind the lines where he could once again ‘walk along an open road, and across open fields.’ In the meantime, he would content himself with looking up at the same moon and stars as his father would see when taking his own walks in Bushy Park: ‘it’s strange, isn’t it – but there is something friendly even about that thought.’

[Next letters: 12 October]