Sherriff wrote two letters home today – a longer one to Pips, and a letter to his mother (of indeterminate length, since all that survives is a single page). But both letters are suffused with gloom.
The page to his mother rehearses his upset at the unwelcome note from his C.O.:
‘I am still writing in my old dugout so I have note been changed yet, I am almost certain it is coming soon, but cannot say the day – but after all I might have been with the Battalion all the while and never have been detailed for my present work which I have enjoyed for the last 7 weeks, so I am afraid I am most unreasonable to be annoyed at it – except that I might have been on the job longer if I had paid more attention to the cleanliness of my men…’
In the letter to Pips he didn’t seek to defend himself against the C.O.’s reprimand, but grumbled instead about the addition of two officers to their complement (which ‘rather upset the equilibrium of our domestic affairs’). But he soon returned to the stoicism with which he tried to shore himself up in difficult times: ‘You are quite right that it is no good worrying about being relieved or about anything else out here – the only thing is to get out my Marcus Aurelius etc, and find comfort in these wonderful books that have never failed in their effect.’
The War Memorial Plaque at Kingston Grammar School, originally unveiled by R C Sherriff in 1920. Source: http://archive.kgs.org.uk/Authenticated/ImageWWIMemorial.aspx
He was in particular need of comfort because, apart from the troubles with the Colonel, he had just heard that two of his school friends had been killed:
‘I am very sorry indeed to hear that Dick Webb and [Kenneth] Restall have both been killed: they were two of my earliest school-friends, and friends I kept right up till, and after, the outbreak of war. I knew Webb since I first went to the Grammar School when I was seven years old, and Restall about a year after. Yet these are things that cannot but be expected and, although they do not depress you it makes you feel all the more the hateful uselessness of the whole thing – there is nothing to do but to bear everything that fate brings along with the knowledge that it cannot be prevented. Of course I cannot absolutely realise the loss of these friends until the time comes when the whole is over and then is the time when those who come back will look round and find that they have got to find new friends to make up for the old ones. I cannot say how sorry I am to hear about Dick and Restall.’
He was, however, glad to hear that ‘all the men at O.S. [the Oxford Street branch of Sun Insurance] are still well and hope it will long remain so’.
The rest of his letter home to Pips was more prosaic. He apologised for having been unable to mail the postcards to him as he had promised (censorship restrictions), but he would find out for certain whether the practice was banned and, if it was, he would bring them home when he finally returned on leave. He had heard that his father had recently enjoyed ptarmigan, and recalled that the only time he had ever heard the bird mentioned before was when he and Pips had been on a cycle tour in Monmouth (‘Our tours are always bringing up old memories’).
He also told Pips that he had just bought a copy of The Child’s History of England, by Charles Dickens – ‘It is simply a history of England told in very simple language, and the interest is increased by it coming from such a famous writer’. He then went on to list the other books in his little trench library: Guy Mannering; Old Mortality; The Bride of Lammermoor; Marcus Aurelius; Epictetus; and Eothen (a voyage in Palestine). ‘Rather a weird mixture, aren’t they? But just a nice assortment – realy far too many to be carried about on Active Service, but I think I would sacrifice anything else in my bundle for two or three of these fine books.’
He hoped that Pips and the family would not put off Xmas until he came home – they should try to enjoy it even without him: ‘However quietly you keep it, nothing can take away the fascination of Xmas Eve and Xmas Day that lives in everyone as a sort of hereditary instinct’. he recalled a previous Xmas Eve when Pips had come home and read some Chapters from The Hero of Sedan, [written by Captain F S Brereton, first published in 1910, resembling the children’ books of G A Henty], and then they had gone to the cinema and come home in a thick fog: ‘I think I can recall all my Xmasses for the last 12 years as though they happened yesterday…’.
[Next letter: 14 December]