War Classics (28 page)

You might let me know if the postcards arrive all right.

What’s doing at home – everything pretty dead & alive?

If you are sending any stuff out here to Tommies don’t send sweaters, cardigans, shirts, socks, etc. Any amount of these, as many as the people care to ask for are supplied
free
to the troops here. I know this for a fact. If they don’t get them it’s because their Quartermaster is rotten. But send out old magazines, matches and cigarettes. They get 50 cigs a week fewer than 500 each but these are all of one class and Tommy gets fed up without his Woodbine and his Gold Flake for variety. Send them of course cigarettes out of bond if possible. Also send ’em eatables but the people knitting are absolutely unnecessary. On active service if the officers are worth their salt and the QM a good man Tommy wants for nothing in the way of necessaries either of food or dress. But he wants luxuries, his own luxuries, little things such as handkerchiefs and soap. He gets plenty towels, a sponge, and odds and ends – reels, even small knives and forks for Tommy loses these and is looked on with a wrathful eye when he seeks that which was lost from comrades and Quartermaster.

No more just now, am just off to bed for this is really Thursday night tho’ it won’t go till tomorrow wherefore the date.

Hoping all are well, with love from DB Keith

Tuesday?

At last I am at the end of my wanderings at least for the time being. I am now within sound of the guns but quite far away from them and in absolutely no danger and likely to be in none for a month at best.

I met George today and was at his billets and saw him at teatime again. I have also been toddling about with Georgeson and have met Taylor who is in George’s company and also seen a fellow Ross I used to know in Edinburgh. Altogether it has been most interesting. The division we are in is resting after Loos.

I heard that AS Pringle – who was north with Keith Fraser – has been badly hit. He was magnificently game. With a battleaxe and a revolver old Toosie got over the trenches. He was hit four or five times and still fighting when last seen. He was in command of the OTC when I joined. George was not in it. All seconds in command of whom George is one, were left behind before the attack. Later I believe George went up. My impression of him is that he makes an exceedingly good officer and is quite worthy of his job.

I don’t think there is much to say now. We are just settling down here and quite behind the firing line with the certainty of a long rest.

Hope all are well. Love to all, from DB Keith

18.10.15

My dear Mother,

I got letters today from Tiny, Willie and yourself and yesterday from Mildred and Louise for which much thanks.

I thought I had acknowledged the grouse and butter. I got them and forthwith they were eaten.

Tomorrow George comes to dinner with us and if the partridges arrive as expected we will do well.

Other than the grouse and butter no eatables have as yet arrived and we have open-mouthed waited to find a parcel but none arrived. Never mind stuff. I’ll have to send some of the stuff I have here back but eatables need not be carried save on the person.

I’m in billets all right and quite comfortable – see little of war in its actuality.

I’ll write again tomorrow or later tonight, meantime I must end as the light is out and dinner ready.

With love to all and hoping all are well, from, DB Keith

23.10.15

Tho’ it is only 9 p.m. I am fearfully tired and ready for bed. I got your budget of letters and one from Mil all right also one from Julia I think.

The partridges have not yet come to hand. I got the grouse yesterday, also truffles & honey pretty squashed 1 fowl and brace partridges. We ate 1 brace grouse yesterday, gave the other brace to the CO and the partridge and the fowl were eaten tonight.

The days here soon pass. The big guns are not far off and the flash lights up the sky very brightly and the […] of the shells thro’ the air all help to make one realise the war. But for active service it is as yet pretty much a picnic.

I will write to Cox as father suggests. Also it might be better to give him a power of attorney over any stick, etc in my name.

I really am too tired to write more and must get off to bed.

I shall be sending home some things as I have too much out here. I fear George won’t get home this time after all. Georgeson may have told that he met me.

With love to all and hoping all are well, from DB Keith

PS Can you let me have Saroléa’s
Address to the French Class
? We don’t have much to read here.

2.11.15

My dear Mother,

I have regularly got your letters and very frequently your parcels for which I have to thank you very much. The last parcel I received from you contained a brace of grouse and a piece ham which was much enjoyed. However, don’t send any more ham as we get loads of it and jolly good stuff too. I also got a third parcel from Tiny which was also excellent. I am indeed very well off in respect of parcels for which many thanks. The CO and I had many meals off the grouse and partridges arriving while we were in the trenches. We go in again in a day or two so a repetition and continuous feast will be most acceptable. You will remember also to keep a turkey and grouse for Xmas.

About stuff for the men honestly they want absolutely nothing. They get a brand new rigout every time they come out of the trenches. They get a ration issue of cigarettes. They get papers and presents. I can honestly think of absolutely nothing in the way of ordinary comforts that you could send them that would be of any use. Parcels of eatables are of course asked for when they write home but then you can’t cater for that.

About my stove at home the only one that is any use out here is a PRIMUS paraffin stove. I had one once, a small pocket one. It seems to have got lost. If you find it you could send it otherwise don’t bother. I really don’t need one, only if there was that one knocking about unused we could use it. I don’t think it is tho’ and a metholated stove is useless and an ordinary paraffin one too heavy to take about.

I am sorry that Father has a cold and Ed the mumps. However I hope both are now better. You will see Foulis got wounded, a soft ‘cushy’ one we call it. It means a slight wound enough to let him get home and do no damage. He is as right as rain.

That last tour in the trenches was more or less uneventful. Except for dodging shells and one strafe of our own it was monotonous. One day an attack was reported and I had the messages calling up our artillery written out. It didn’t come off. I have the messages and later when ancient history will send you the identical message which will be interesting to keep. I have also drawn rough sketches of my dugout. You might ask Poll next time she is in Princes Street to go to DOIG WILSON & WHEATLEY in I think Castle Street on the left-hand side going down and buy a small 6
d
ricepaper sketchbook or perhaps 1s and a good drawing pencil, a soft one to make sketches here.

You could send out one or two 7
d
or 1
s
novels; they always help to clear the monotony of existence.

Well I must end up now as I have some more letters to write. Love to all, thanks for the parcels. Hope all are now quite well. With love from DB Keith

10.15

My dear Mother,

George is taking this letter across with him when he goes on leave tomorrow. I hope he has a good holiday as he has had a pretty rotten time on the whole here with all his chums knocked out.

Things are rather quiet here on the whole and tonight we leave billets to go into the trenches, but it is improbable that things will be busy where we go as we got a pretty severe knock so lately.

However as now I am in command of my company I will have a great deal to do and won’t get many letters written even if facilities for posting them occur so don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for ten days or so. It will certainly do nobody good. Of course nowhere in the trenches is absolutely safe but still it’s not very bad in the support and not in the firing line. But we will be awfully busy working there and with no sleep at night I may find my hands full.

I get on very well here on the whole. The adjutant was going on leave on Friday or Saturday and I was to be acting adjutant in his stead. Now in all probability leave is off.

Well I can’t say much more as after all there is little to say. This time next week I will have either settled down to the trenches or be sick. Somehow I feel I will like the change into the trenches. After all my years at the Varsity were fighting ones and I was ever a fighter so one fight more. In all the things I have tackled, tho’ I says it as shouldn’t, I have fought with all my soul and I have tho’ the honour is not mine, in all won through. And here now on the verge of this trench war I feel a strength and confidence that I hope and believe will carry me thro’ so that at all events you will not I hope have cause to be ashamed of how I faced the foe.

This must be all as it is now about 11 and I have to go across to George with this and after that probably more work.

I have the honour of taking ‘A’ Coy into the trenches with only one other officer to help me and this tho’ another officer arrived tonight but had he been posted to A would have taken over command. Fear not I’ll win this all right.

Best wishes and love from DB Keith

4.11.15

My dear Mother,

You are no doubt wondering why I have not had time to write you, and what has been doing here. Well to start from the beginning George left for home and I turned towards the firing line the morning after his departure. Then I roosted for 12 days clad fully and never having clothes or boots off. Mostly it was wet, mostly it was cold, mostly it was slightly dangerous but it was grand.

Sleep of course was at a minimum; on two days I had none at all on other days 4 hours or so. Yet it was an excellent experience. You would I am afraid have looked rather askance at me had you seen me on my way back to billets here. The trenches were muddy, so muddy that even my knees were thick and at times it looked as if it would require some effort other than mine own to pull my huge feet out of the treacly toffee stuff.

However at length we saw daylight, toddled over the open ground and it rained. We were still toddling we splashed quite contentedly thro’ two feet of water with light hearts but wet clothes and chilled stomachs. But when we got back we had some feed. I rather wished that I could have been photographed there tramping back in the darkness over what was once a road tho’ now thro’ ruts mostly a ditch.

But to return. The first things that gave me the real sense of a nation at war was on the march to the trenches. There was the youth of France, lads of 12 to 15 with coats off digging holes at the roadside to drain off the water. There they were digging trenches. It is a marvellous war.

Comparatively small children whom one accustoms oneself to think of as always laughing and playing football, wee kids with serious faces and muddy legs dig dig digging for the war had made even them helpers of their country.

Well we got to behind the firing line, to see what was once a town about the size of Thurso. Houses clean and new looking but only irregular chunks of wall left standing. In the gardens behind open gates and painted railings were pear and apple trees, with foliage but no fruit. The fruit no doubt unripe enough in its early youth, had been plucked by a hungry Tommy to the disgust of the R&AMC [
sic
– RAMC]. The church was still standing only half the tower was not. The door was open but I question if anyone had entered it for months. The windows were gone long ago and stones and masonry heaped the floor. Yet not so long ago some priest had it for his chapel. The Crucifix was visible thro’ the open door. But there is neither priest nor populace there any longer. Instead Guns, Guns, Guns, and a RED X Ambulance and a British graveyard with its wooden crosses.

We got into the communication trench and passed on from dusk to darkness and we heard the rifle bullets singing and saw the flares and we knew we were in it at last. I slept in a small hole in the earth 6x4x4 ft. There we messed and ate the grouse and partridges you sent and always watched for the Boche.

I gathered lots of souvenirs. A German rifle with cartridges. An Austrian with fixed bayonet, an old battle bludgeon with its head studded with nails such as the sturdy yeomen of England went forth to wage war with to France in other days, and the noses of all kinds and conditions of shells.

These I left. To carry what one needs is bad enough, to carry these is impossible.

After a day or two we transferred nearer the firing line, now about 100yds from the Boche. Here we resided in a gorgeous dugout, once the pride of a German officer, a spring mattress, tables, chairs, wooden walls, everything excellent – and at the side a door to another compartment with a cupola in it of
½”
steel with snipers’ windows which could be opened and shut. The Boche does nothing by halves. Later I found another dugout where he had electric light. Really the conveniences of war sometimes are nice. But the awfulness of never taking clothes off. Always on the alert, never sleeping or sleeping but little makes one soon tired. After a day or two again I moved forward still further till I was only 20yds from the Genial Boche in this trench. Here, as you may imagine, I did not sleep, nor was there any hole in the wall into which I could creep, did I so desire. It rained all day and all night and I waited then for the dawn right thro’ the night, watching the parapet of the Boche. Dawn at last, and with it I scour the trench opposite with my glasses and in the dim light observe a too venturesome German who I send away, I think, in an ambulance. He was not far away. He was still. He offered a good target. I am a passing shot. I took my time and he disappeared.

Daytime it was not bad at all, especially getting dry. Night again and again anxiety, and an attack. About midnight or 1 a.m. the Boche and his bombers crept up and we blazed like billy oh, and he did not reach our trench. After that quietness, but eternal watching. Then I went back to 100yds from the Boche and had a decent sleep and rest, what time he expended many shells which we received with fatalistic contempt.