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]