To his sister, Isabel Briggs
Friday, 11th Feb [1916]
6th Lon. Fd. Amb. 47th Divn
My dear Isabel
Best thanks for your letter! Don't feel too sorry for me over my touch
of influenza! I soon got over it (apart from a worrying bit of a cough), &
have been given very light duties since.
Pity instead, the fellows who come in with a similar complaint from the
trenches, the M.O.s & orderlies here having no personal knowledge of them
to substantiate their bona fides. They get a few days' rest here, then are
probably sent off to the "Corps Rest Camp" – alluring title perhaps to
anyone who knows it not. These convalescent camps are loathed by all who
have been to them. It is rough luck on a genuinely seedy man to get
treated like a semi-delinquent.
The other side of the case is that malingerers are many, & up to endless
dodges! On the one hand one feels sorry for the "fed-up" one who has
perhaps gone through a good many months of this dismal fighting & thinks he
deserves a holiday. On the other, there are the men left behind in the
trenches who have the work of the feeble-hearted left on their shoulders.
This has been a dreary day of rain, but I have slept. After the night's
performances, we hand over to the day staff at about seven; breakfast,
(which is the one tolerable army meal); & then leisurely turn in. A little
group of us, about half-a-dozen, always have tea together at a cottage near
by: quite pleasant little meals – then possibly a hand at bridge
before seven o'clock. It doesn't sound very strenuous, does it? –
Nor is it! Of course things would be very different if it weren't at the
moment so quiet "up the line". – A really strange stillness reigns
these days... The place has had different scenes. Ghosts! – I have
been trying to detect them in the air; – but can't. By day or night
the scene is equally prosaic! Aren't there such things, or have all those
poor September ghosts left the place of their sufferings in horror? –
–
Trotman & others are at the moment "up the line" & are having the
quietest time on
record:- do nothing but play bridge! I am sending home three or four
photographs (terrible things) of men of the "circle". Hoard them up for me,
please.
I can't encourage you to expect me home on leave for months & months
yet. The "old gang" – men who for years went through the complicated
farce of territorial camps, – are having their turn first, as it is
indeed right that they should. And I should rather disdain to ask for
"special leave" without having some really urgent reason.
I have just been infuriated by glancing through the "Times" history (!)
of the Loos affair. I suppose survivors will have a good deal of this sort
of thing to put up with from Fleet-St. hacks. The letterpress –
bilge-water English & full of mis-statements: – a map full of
inaccuracies: – "pictures" – grotesquely puerile. In short,
the loathely trail of Harmsworthian vulgarism over Armageddon.
Please thank Mother for the choc. & the quaint little box of draughts,
etc. – Truth to tell, the tabloids weren't much use but the draughts
I have given to one of our enthusiasts. I should love to have a glimpse of
you all, but that doesn't mean that my recollections of home are at all
vague! I now & then have most vivid dreams of home folks & the difficulty
on waking is to realise that all this absurdity – me in uniform,
sleeping on boards, & the war – is true! – One gets a rather
similar feeling after reading a few chapters of some frivolous novel or
another.
The other day I had a letter from Mrs Parkes; likewise from "Lena
Maitland", giving me some details of the Shaftesbury season & also a cake!
Mrs Pulver is genuinely kind in the way she writes to me. I shall never be
able to feel the old passion for music.
I am sorry to hear that Frank is queer. Give him my greetings. I am
glad Mildren has had time to write to him. The particulars about the
casualties I had once at least told Frank – but perhaps my letter was
censored. Colonels can say things that L.Cpls can't! I told Frank, I
think, that Hughes – now M.J.O., captain, was speaking of him to me
the other day.
Tomorrow I must go down to say goodbye to the schoolmaster's wife:
– they seem quite old friends – nearly eight months since we first saw them. They refuse to consider any one of the Fd Ambulances they have had to be in the same street with us. Some were "correct"; others, like the people I visited just before Xmas, "rightdown brigands, treating us as though we were a conquered country". But with us alone have they made real friends! – The whole truth is, of course, not told about the relations between us (the English generally) & the French population. On the whole things don't go badly; but the French peasants are sometimes grasping & mendicant; & our fellows – particularly new arrivals – are not at all scrupulous about pilfering in shops, etc. At the schoolmaster's they have an incessant sequence of Ambulances, & she has to put up two or three officers. These sometimes treat her like the lady she is. Sometimes she gets less consideration than a servant. The result is they regard the English as utter enigmas.
Did I tel you that our old colonel, O'Connor, had died? (No loss to the
nation). The senior major who had been O.C. since last Oct., is now
Lieu-Col.
How old is Evans? – I hate to think of him dragged into this
wretchedness, but he must, I suppose, be 18 or 19? Does he aspire to a
commission? Otherwise why not get in the M.T. branch of the A.S.C.?
Goodbye, my dear. My tender thoughts for everyone of you. Your Richard