‘We have come to a place that has been long famous in the war,’ Sherriff wrote to Pips. ‘I cannot tell you where or anything about it [he was in Hooge, near Ypres], but for absolute destruction the district will leave an impression on my mind which I will never forget. If I ever have the chance of writing a book, and if I could ever acquire the gift of describing there is no weirder sight in the world I am convinced.’

A picture taken by Sherriff’s father while on their battlefield tour in 1921. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/9/7)

He continued:

‘Even in this desolation spring cannot help showing itself everywhere – early this morning I was on duty and a cuckoo started calling in a wood in the German lines – a battered skeleton of a wood which no bird should occupy and then it flew across to a little group of tree stumps on our side  – quite neutral you see.  Grass springs up where it can and flowers grow in little patches of grass which have not been torn by shells or parched by gas – leaves and buds come from trees which have survived and any opening given for spring to show itself is always taken.’

He was feeling well, and had not had a recurrence of neuralgia for some days – perhaps because of the warmer weather. He was making progress with Mr Britling, which he was enjoying, and along with his Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus he had plenty to read. Not that there was any shortage of work to do in the line – rifle inspections, letter-censoring and ‘all sorts of odd jobs’ took up plenty of his time.

Officers were gradually being sent on leave, and, if he stayed well, his turn would soon come round. He was looking forward to it: ‘What a pleasure it would be…to get away from Flanders for a bit and get back again to dear old England and some rides into the country and trips on the river.’

[Next letter: 20 May]

Now in the front line at Hooge, near Ypres, Sherriff sent a note to his mother telling her that he was quite well:

‘I am quite comfortable here, and have quite a nice little dugout, where I have a bed and a table to write on. I cannot tell you anything about the place we are in at present as the censor will not allow it – but you will be glad to know that I feel quite well at present and that there are worse places than this.’

He promised that he would try to find a flower for her and send it home, to add to the other two he had previously sent [a scarlet pimpernel from Vimy Ridge, and a snowdrop picked while training recruits behind the lines a month earlier]. ‘It is a little way or remembering places by’, he told her.

‘Dear old Rossendale’, in Seymour Road, Hampton Wick. By Permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 3813/14/3/1)

Although he had only just arrived in the front line, he was already hoping that they would soon be relieved, and be sent out to rest again, where it was quieter: he found the constant noise very troubling. Trying to buck himself up he told her that he realised there was nothing to do but put up with things, and hope he would emerged unscathed, and be able to return to ‘dear old Rossendale’, and all the activities they had planned. On the other hand:

‘If I failed to come through I have the happiness of knowing that you will always be well provided for – you have Bundy, and even if you did not I know you would always be capable through your knowledge of nursing to look after yourself – all the same dear, I trust you will not be called upon to do the and that I shall have the pleasure of looking after you and trying to repay you for all you have done for me.’

Before putting his pencil down (he had to get some sleep before going on duty), he told her  of the comfort he derived from the ‘good books’ which he carried everywhere, as well as from the signet ring she had given him, and the photos of her that he carried with him, which meant that ‘I can never be lonely wherever I am’.

[Next letter: 17 May]

[For those familiar with Sherriff’s letters, there are actually two dated on this date (carrying the Surrey History Centre catalogue references of 2332/1/1/2/173 and 2332/1/1/2/174). But it is quite clear from the text in the second, which notes that he has now left the front line, that Sherriff has misdated it. The more likely date is 26 May, by which time the Battalion had moved into Divisional Support.]

‘We have had an easy time today,’ wrote Sherriff to his mother, ‘as the men require a rest before moving into the line – I hope we shall not be in for long, but one cannot tell exactly.’

He told her not to worry if she did not hear from him for a day or two, because sometimes there was so much work to do that it was impossible to find the time to write. And anyway, ‘should anything happen to me, dear, you would soon know, as they are very prompt in letting you know.’ Furthermore:

‘If anything should happen to me that I should not come back, I would like you to get a bungalow like Sleepy Hollow, and have it at Selsey – buying it out of the money which I have in my office deposit fund, which is now over £50 I believe. I feel there is no nicer way in which I would like the money to be spent.’

Sleepy Hollow – the Sherriff’s railway carriage bungalow on the seafront at Selsey (by permission of the Surrey History Centre)

On the other hand, he much preferred that they should be able to spend the money together, on the tour of England they had often talked about.

He hoped that her hours of work at the hospital were easier for her now – she had probably got used to them by now, he expected, since she had been there quite a long time – in fact, for about as long as he had been in France (‘and that seems long enough’). He hoped that he might get leave soon – there were only around 8 officers in front of him now, and with luck they would all be sent home quickly.

In the meantime, it was time to put down his pencil, since he had to pack up his things, ready for the short march into the front line.

[Next letter: 16 May]

After another day’s hard marching in the heat Sherriff sent home letters to both his parents to let them know he was well. ‘I am writing this letter in a hut very much like those at Romford [where he had trained with the Artists Rifles],’ he told his mother. ‘We arrived after a fairly long march and I believe we rest the night here. I have not any idea what happens next.’ In practice, though, he had a fairly shrewd idea, as he told Pips: ‘We have nearly arrived at our destination, and will probably shortly move into a part of the line.’

After all those days on the march, he was now nearer home now than he had ever been, and the prospect of moving into the line seemed to have made him rather homesick:  ‘I often think of what I would now be doing if at home,’ he wrote to Pips, ‘and it is such a comfort to know that home is still there and not as some houses are like over here.’ And he was obviously trying to approach the imminent move philosophically, perhaps to steady his nerves:

‘I simply loathe the war [he wrote to his mother] but all the time I know it must end soon or something will occur to bring me home or that in dying there are no more worries at all – please don’t think I am trying to make you feel miserable – I only want you to think just as I do – to be prepared for anything that may happen – as I am sure you are and always have been…The country and trees are looking beautiful just at present – I hate going into the line even for the shame of leaving this lovely spring-looking country behind.’

He had no time to say much more, for he had the men’s letters to censor, and other duties to perform. But he reassured them that, while in the line, he would do his best to write home, even if his letters were brief, and written ‘under the most trying conditions.’

[Next letter: 15 May]

After an absence of a few days, while halted after another day’s march on the way back to the front lines, Sherriff finally picked up his pencil again:

‘Another long march today has brought us many miles from anywhere I have yet been to over here – the weather is perfectly fine still, and it is making a wonderful difference to the country. The roads, of course, are extremely dusty and it makes marching very trying for the men, though it is excellent training.’

Extract from the 9th East Surreys Battalion Diary (http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk)

He had risen at 3:00am, for they had elected to start early that morning, in anticipation of a hot day ahead, and had made ‘many miles before the sun became troublesome’, after which they had rested for a few hours. For his part, he was very happy to be marching (although not in the direction they were travelling):

‘I am always very glad to get some marching as I was always fond of it, and you see so many interesting towns and things on the way – the people alter as the towns do and, although cobbles are hard to march on and flat country is uninteresting unless there are towns, there is plenty to keep your attention occupied.’

He had discovered, from a recent letter by Pips, that they were both now reading Mr Britling Sees it Through [written by H G Wells, and published the previous September], a book which he was half-way through, and enjoying, hoping that it would prove to be ‘one of the few good war books published.’ Perhaps reading the book had made him yearn for home, for he often wondered how things were there – his 7 1/2 months in France had been a long stretch and he hoped that he might be allowed home on leave soon. In the meantime, he would just have to cling to his philosophy texts:

‘One can never tell what is going to happen next here, and Philosophy is absolutely the one;y comfort obtainable in the trying times which are bound to occur frequently…’

[Next letters: 13 May]

The day that Sherriff had been dreading had finally arrived, as he glumly reported to his father:

‘Just a line to tell you we are moving off this morning on a march of some miles…It is a beautiful day and the march should be pleasant, although the march back is never so pleasant as the one coming. There is always an element of surprise about these moves, and one can never tell to what part of the line we are next destined for. We can only hope for the best and that the whole affair will be over soon. Meanwhile, I have my Marcus Aurelius with me and can always get a certain amount of comfort from that, as with my Epictetus.’

“I must go now to get ready,’ he wrote, as he closed his letter, and prepared himself for the long march back to an unknown destination in the front line.

[Next letter: 12 May]

Although orderly officer for the day, Sherriff was off duty until 12:00 (when he had to attend the issuing of rations to the men), so took a few moments to write to his mother. He had clearly been discomfited by suggestions that the Battalion would soon be on the move back to the front:

‘We have been out in rest for nearly 3 weeks, and there are always rumours of our leaving here – once it was last Thursday and now there is a strong rumour of leaving either tomorrow [Wednesday] or Thursday. That is the most unpleasant part of the rest – the continual rumours – and you can never tell when the order may come round. The only thing is to hope for the best and that it may last for some time yet. I am hoping that we may possibly get a month altogether.’

Thanking her for the tin of cigarettes she had sent him he said it was a treat to get ‘good English cigarettes’, instead of the ‘rubbishy kinds’ he could get in France. He had also bought himself a new white cigarette holder, since the previous one he had bought was rather worn out.

He told her, as he had Pips the previous day, about his recent trip into St Omer to do some shopping, and about how he had travelled by means of ‘a funny little train, just like the Selsey railway, which was very slow.’ And then he mentioned that he was no longer wearing an undervest as the weather was so warm – which was a good thing, he wrote, because it meant he had less washing to look after.

Between starting his letter and finishing it later in the day the rumours about their imminent departure had grown in strength, so that it was now ‘almost certain we are off again tomorrow’. He tried to be stoic as always: ‘I expect everything will be bustle and confusion for the next few days. I hope you will not worry, dear – whatever happens is, as it were, decided by fate first, so just patiently wait and I will do my best to bear everything that happens.’

[Next letter: 9 May]

‘We have been out all day on manoeuvres which consisted of attacking lines of trenches etc’, wrote Sherriff to Pips. ‘The day was very hot and the work was very hard so we had a hot two hours of it and were quite glad when we arrived back to lunch.’

The previous day (Sunday) he had visited a nearby large town [probably St Omer] to do some shopping for the Mess and for other officers. It was about twelve miles away and he had travelled there ‘in a groggy little railway like the Selsey line, the carriages being chiefly occupied by Portuguese soldiers’. The trains only ran twice a day (at 6:00am and 2:00pm), so he had left early and arrived at the town in time for breakfast at an officers’ tea room. After his shopping he had toured the town and enjoyed the sights, with which he was quite familiar, since it was the same one he had stayed in while resting while his teeth were fixed some months earlier. He noted that the local cathedral had a cannon ball (fired by Marlborough’s forces) embedded in its walls – ‘an example of the difference between ancient and modern warfare – what would a 9 inch shell have done if it had struck the same place in the cathedral wall?’

He had arrived back from the town at 4:00pm, just in time to see the end of the tug-of-war contest. The regiment had also played the RE at cricket that day, but had lost quite heavily – ‘I am afraid there is not much chance of having practice’, he noted ruefully. The next day he would be Orderly Officer again, which meant a very early start for inspection – so he apologised for bringing his letter to an end, but he really ought to get to bed.

[Next letters: 8 May]

Writing to his mother, Sherriff observed that the weather was still very fine, and that the men were beginning to look very brown:

‘We have been out this morning in an absolutely boiling sun which is more like August than May – this afternoon is a holiday and I am spending it in quietly reading and writing as it is too hot for anything else at present.’

Part of his reading consisted of  letters he had received from home – from his mother, and also one from each of Bundy and Pips – ‘it is so good of you to keep me supplied like this,’ he told her. He hoped the weather was similarly hot at home, so that his mother could get outside to exercise more, now that she was not working such long hours at the hospital.

He had sent another parcel of surplus kit back home about a fortnight earlier, and hoped that she had received it. He had enclosed a heavy tunic which would be too hot to wear in summer, but which he thought might be useful as a ‘kind of lounge jacket, if I ever become a civilian again – as I hope, if there is any luck, may be soon’.

There was not much in the way of news to tell her. The work they were doing was much the same every day, and he hoped they would continue with it for some time. He was very pleased, though, with the other officers in his company:

‘I could not wish for better friends…and we always have a very pleasant time together – especially in the Mess, which is a large room in a farmhouse – the others are mostly older than me, but they are perfect companions.’

He hoped that everything was quite well at home, and that she was glad that, while he was in France, he was ‘as happy as I could ever possibly be away from home.’

[Next letter: 7 May]

Despite being in rest with his Battalion in Coyecques, Sherriff had not written a letter home in some days. Perhaps conscious of the omission, he wrote a quick note to tell his father how he was doing:

‘Today I have been out with the Engineers on a short course lasting two days – the weather still remains beautiful and wandering about the country is very nice indeed – in the afternoon we put in a steady 2 hours trench digging – and in the evening I went for my usual walk to watch some football in progress. After the incessant rain the country is now bursting out into flowers everywhere and this piece of country is particularly fine with the early spring flowers. The country is very much like parts of the South Downs although more cultivated and parts of the river remind me of parts of country round Winchester.’

He had no idea how long they were likely to remain in Coyecques, but hoped it would still be some time. And, with that, he signed off, promising another note the following day if he could.

[Next letter: 6 May]