I HAD wired my parents that I should be arriving at Waterloo Station the next morning. The roadway from the hospital train to a row of waiting ambulances had been roped off; as each stretcher case was lifted from the train, a huge hysterical crowd surged up to the barrier and uttered a new roar. Flags were being waved. The Somme battle seemed to be regarded at home as the beginning of the end of the war. As I looked idly at the crowd, one figure detached itself: to my embarrassment – I recognized my father, hopping about on one leg, waving an umbrella, and cheering with the best of them.
The ambulance took me to Queen Alexandra’s Hospital at Highgate: Sir Alfred Mond’s big house, lent for the duration of the War, and reputedly the best hospital in London. Having a private room to myself came as an unexpected luxury. What I most disliked in the Army was never being alone, forced to live and sleep with men whose company, in many cases, I would have run miles to avoid.
At Highgate, the lung healed up easily, and the doctors saved my finger. I heard here for the first time of my supposed death; the joke contributed greatly to my recovery. People with whom I had been on the worst terms during my life, wrote the most enthusiastic condolences to my mother: ‘Gosh’ Parry, my horrible housemaster, for instance. I have kept a letter from The Times advertising manager, dated August 5th, 1916:
Captain Robert Graves.
Dear Sir,
We have to acknowledge receipt of your letter with reference to the announcement contradicting the report of your death from wounds. Having regard, however, to the fact that we had previously published some biographical details, we inserted your announcement in our issue of today (Saturday) under ‘Court Circular’ without charge, and we have much pleasure in enclosing herewith cutting of same.
Yours, etc.
The cutting read:
Captain Robert Graves, Royal Welch Fusiliers, officially reported died of wounds, wishes to inform his friends that he is recovering from his wounds at Queen Alexandra’s Hospital, Highgate, N.
Mrs Lloyd George has left London for Criccieth.
I never saw the biographical details supplied by my father; they might have been helpful here. Some letters written to me in France were returned to him, as my next-of-kin, surcharged: ‘Died of wounds – present location uncertain – P. Down, Post-corporal.’
The only inconvenience caused by this death was that Cox’s Bank stopped my pay, and I had difficulty in persuading it to honour my cheques. Siegfried wrote of his joy to hear I was alive again. He had been sent back to England with suspected lung trouble and felt nine parts dead from the horror of the Somme fighting. We agreed to take our leave together at Harlech when I got well enough to travel. I was able to travel in September. We met on Paddington Station. Siegfried bought a copy of The Times at the book-stall. As usual, we turned to the casualty list first; and found there the names of practically every officer in the First Battalion, listed as either killed or wounded. Edmund Dadd, killed; his brother Julian, in Siegfried’s Company, wounded – shot through the throat, as we learned later, only able to talk in a whisper, and for months utterly prostrated. It had happened at Ale Alley near Ginchy, on September 3rd. A dud show, with the battalion out-flanked by a counter-attack. News like this in England was far more upsetting than in France. Still feeling very weak, I could not help crying all the way up to Wales. Siegfried complained bitterly: ‘Well, old Stockpot got his C.B. at any rate!’
England looked strange to us returned soldiers. We could not understand the war-madness that ran wild everywhere, looking for a pseudo-military outlet. The civilians talked a foreign language; and it was newspaper language. I found serious conversation with my parents all but impossible. Quotations from a single typical document of this time will be enough to show what we were facing:
A MOTHER’S ANSWER TO ‘A COMMON SOLDIER’
By A Little Mother
A Message to the Pacifists.
A Message to the Bereaved.
A Message to the Trenches.
Owing to the immense demand from home and from the trenches for this letter, which appeared in The Morning Post, the Editor found it necessary to place it in the hands of London publishers to be reprinted in pamphlet form, seventy-five thousand copies of which were sold in less than a week direct from the publishers.
Extract from a letter from Her Majesty
‘The Queen was deeply touched at the “Little Mother’s” beautiful letter, and Her Majesty fully realizes what her words must mean to our soldiers in the trenches and in hospitals.’
*
To the Editor of ‘The Morning Post’
Sir, – As a mother of an only child – a son who was early and eager to do his duty – may I be permitted to reply to Tommy Atkins, whose letter appeared in your issue of the 9th inst.? Perhaps he will kindly convey to his friends in the trenches, not what the Government thinks, not what the Pacifists think, but what the mothers of the British race think of our fighting men. It is a voice which demands to be heard, seeing that we play the most important part in the history of the world, for it is we who ‘mother the men’ who have to uphold the honour and traditions not only of our Empire but of the whole civilized world.
To the man who pathetically calls himself a ‘common soldier’, may I say that we women, who demand to be heard, will tolerate no such cry as ‘Peace! Peace!’ where there is no peace. The corn that will wave over land watered by the blood of our brave lads shall testify to the future that their blood was not spilt in vain. We need no marble monuments to remind us. We only need that force of character behind all motives to see this monstrous world tragedy brought to a victorious ending. The blood of the dead and the dying, the blood of the ‘common soldier’ from his ‘slight wounds’ will not cry to us in vain. They have all done their share, and we, as women, will do ours without murmuring and without complaint. Send the Pacifists to us and we shall very soon show them, and show the world, that in our homes at least there shall be no ‘sitting at home warm and cosy in the winter, cool and “comfy” in the summer’. There is only one temperature for the women of the British race, and that is white heat. With those who disgrace their sacred trust of motherhood we have nothing in common. Our ears are not deaf to the cry that is ever ascending from the battlefield from men of flesh and blood whose indomitable courage is borne to us, so to speak, on every blast of the wind. We women pass on the human ammunition of ‘only sons’ to fill up the gaps, so that when the ‘common soldier’ looks back before going ‘over the top’ he may see the women of the British race at his heels, reliable, dependent, uncomplaining.
The reinforcements of women are, therefore, behind the ‘common soldier’. We gentle-nurtured, timid sex did not want the war. It is no pleasure to us to have our homes made desolate and the apple of our eye taken away. We would sooner our lovable, promising, rollicking boy stayed at school We would have much preferred to have gone on in a light-hearted way with our amusements and our hobbies. But the bugle call came, and we have hung up the tennis racquet, we’ve fetched our laddie from school, we’ve put his cap away, and we have glanced lovingly over his last report which said ‘Excellent’ – we’ve wrapped them all in a Union Jack and locked them up, to be taken out only after the war to be looked at A ‘common soldier’, perhaps, did not count on the women, but they have their part to play, and we have risen to our responsibility. We are proud of our men, and they in turn have to be proud of us. If the men fail. Tommy Atkins, the women won’t.
Tommy Atkins to the front,
He has gone to bear the brunt.
Shall ‘stay-at-homes’ do naught but snivel and but sigh?
No, while your eyes are filling
We are up and doing, willing
To face the music with you – or to die!
Women are created for the purpose of giving life, and men to take it. Now we are giving it in a double sense. It’s not likely we are going to fail Tommy. We shall not flinch one iota, but when the war is over he must not grudge us, when we hear the bugle call of ‘Lights out’, a brief, very brief, space of time to withdraw into our secret chambers and share, with Rachel the Silent, the lonely anguish of a bereft heart, and to look once more on the college cap, before we emerge stronger women to carry on the glorious work our men’s memories have handed down to us for now and all eternity.
Yours, etc.,
A Little Mother.
EXTRACTS AND PRESS CRITICISMS
‘The widest possible circulation is of the utmost importance.’ – The Morning Post.
‘Deservedly attracting a great deal of attention, as expressing with rare eloquence and force the feelings with which the British wives and mothers have faced and are facing the supreme sacrifice.’ – The Morning Post.
‘Excites widespread interest’ – The Gentlewoman.
‘A letter which has become celebrated.’ – The Star.
‘We would like to see it hung up in our wards.’ – Hospital Blue.
‘One of the grandest things ever written, for it combines a height of courage with a depth of tenderness which should be, and is, the stamp of all that is noblest and best in human nature.’ – A Soldier in France.
‘Florence Nightingale did great and grand things for the soldiers of her day, but no woman has done more than the “Little Mother”, whose now famous letter in The Morning Post has spread like wild-fire from trench to trench. I hope to God it will be handed down in history, for nothing like it has ever made such an impression on our fighting men. I defy any man to feel weak-hearted after reading it… My God! she makes us die happy.’ – One who has Fought and Bled.
‘Worthy of far more than a passing notice; it ought to be reprinted and sent out to every man at the front. It is a masterpiece and fills one with pride, noble, level-headed, and pathetic to a degree.’ – Severely Wounded.
‘I have lost my two dear boys, but since I was shown the “Little Mother’s” beautiful letter a resignation too perfect to describe has calmed all my aching sorrow, and I would now gladly give my sons twice over.’ – A Bereaved Mother.
‘The “Little Mother’s” letter should reach every corner of the earth – a letter of the loftiest ideal, tempered with courage and the most sublime sacrifice.’ – Percival H. Monkton.
‘The exquisite letter by a “Little Mother” is making us feel prouder every day. We women desire to fan the flame which she has so superbly kindled in our hearts.’ – A British Mother of an Only Son.
At Harlech, Siegfried and I spent the time getting our poems in order; Siegfried was at work on his Old Huntsman. We made a number of changes in each other’s verses; I proposed amendments, which he accepted, in an obituary poem ‘To His Dead Body’ – written for me when he thought me dead.
We defined the war in our poems by making contrasted definitions of peace. With Siegfried it was hunting, nature, music, and pastoral scenes; with me, chiefly children. In France, I used to spend much of my spare time playing with the French children of the villages in which we were billeted. When Siegfried had gone, I began the novel on which the earlier chapters of this book are based, but soon abandoned it.
Towards the end of September, I stayed in Kent with a recently wounded First Battalion friend. An elder brother had been killed in the Dardanelles, and their mother kept the bedroom exactly as he had left it, with the sheets aired, the linen always freshly laundered, flowers and cigarettes by the bedside. She went around with a vague, bright religious look on her face. The first night I spent there, my friend and I sat up talking about the war until past twelve o’clock. His mother had gone to bed early, after urging us not to get too tired. The talk had excited me, and though I managed to fall asleep an hour later, I was continually awakened by sudden rapping noises, which I tried to disregard but which grew louder and louder. They seemed to come from everywhere. Soon sleep left me and I lay in a cold sweat. At nearly three o’clock, I heard a diabolic yell and a succession of laughing, sobbing shrieks that sent me flying to the door. In the passage I collided with the mother who, to my surprise, was fully dressed. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘One of the maids had hysterics. I’m so sorry you have been disturbed.’ So I went back to bed, but could not sleep again, though the noises had stopped. In the morning I told my friend: ‘I’m leaving, this place. It’s worse than France.’ There were thousands of mothers like her, getting in touch with their dead sons by various spiritualistic means.
In November, Siegfried and I rejoined the battalion at Litherland, and shared a hut. We decided not to make any public protest against war. Siegfried said that we must ‘keep up the good reputation of the poets’ – as men of courage, he meant. Our best place would be back in France, away from the more shameless madness of home-service. There, our function would not be to kill Germans, though that might happen, but to make things easier for the men under our command. For them, the difference between being commanded by someone whom they could count as a friend – someone who protected them as much as he could from the grosser indignities of the military system – and having to study the whims of any petty tyrant in an officer’s tunic, made all the difference in the world. By this time, the ranks of both line battalions were filled with men who had enlisted for patriotic reasons and resented the professional-soldier tradition… Siegfried had already shown what he meant. The Fricourt attack was rehearsed over dummy trenches in the back areas until the whole performance, having reached perfection, began to grow stale. Siegfried, ordered to rehearse once more on the day before the attack, led his platoon into a wood and instead read to them – nothing military or literary, just the London Mail. Though the London Mail, a daring new popular weekly, was hardly in his line, Siegfried thought that the men would enjoy the ‘Things We Want To Know’ column.
Officers of the Royal Welch were honorary members of the Formby Golf Club. Siegfried and I went there often. He played golf seriously, while I hit a ball alongside him. I had once played at Harlech as a junior member of the Royal St David’s, but resigned when I found it bad for my temper. Afraid of taking the game up again seriously, I now limited myself to a single iron. My mis-hits did not matter. I played the fool and purposely put Siegfried off his game. This was a time of great food shortage; German submarines sank about every fourth food ship, and strict meat, butter, and sugar ration had been imposed. But the war had not reached the links. The leading Liverpool businessmen were members of the club, and did not mean to go short while there was any food at all coming in at the docks. Siegfried and I went to the club-house for lunch on the day before Christmas, and found a cold-buffet in the club dining-room, offering hams, barons of beef, jellied tongues, cold roast turkey, and chicken. A large, meaty-faced waiter presided. Siegfried asked him sarcastically: ‘Is this all? There doesn’t seem to be quite such a good spread as in previous years.’ The waiter blushed. ‘No, sir, this isn’t quite up to the usual mark, sir, but we are expecting a more satisfactory consignment of meat on Boxing Day.’ The dining-room at the club-house was always full, the links practically deserted.
We officers of the Mersey garrison made the Adelphi Hotel our favourite rendezvous. It had a swimming bath, and a cocktail bar generally crowded with very drunk Russian naval officers. One day, I met a major of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers there. I saluted him. Taking me aside, he muttered confidentially: ‘It’s nice of you to salute me, my boy, but I must confess that I am not what I seem. I wear a crown on my sleeve, and so does a C.S.M.; but then he’s not entitled to wear these three cuff-bands and the wavy border. Aren’t they pretty? No, I’m not what I seem to be. I’m a sham. I’ve got a sergeant-major’s stomach.’ Accustomed by now to drunken senior officers, I answered respectfully: ‘Really, sir, and how did you come to acquire that?’ He said: ‘You think I’m drunk. Well, perhaps I am, but it’s true about my stomach. You see, I got shot in the guts at the Beaumont-Hamel show. It hurt like hell, let me tell you. They took me down to the field-hospital. I was busy dying; but a company sergeant-major had got it through the head, and he was busy dying, too; and he did die. Well, as soon as ever the sergeant-major died, they took out that long gut, whatever you call the thing, the thing that unwinds – they say it’s as long as a cricket pitch – and they put it into me, grafted it on somehow. Wonderful chaps these medicos! They supply spare parts as though one were a motor-car… Well, this sergeant-major seems to have been an abstemious man. The lining of the new gut is much better than my old one; so I’m celebrating it. I only wish I’d borrowed his kidneys, too.’
An R.A.M.C. captain, sitting close by, broke into the conversation. ‘Yes, major, a stomach wound’s the worst of the lot. You were lucky to reach the field-ambulance alive. The best chance is to lie absolutely still. I got mine out between the lines, while I was bandaging a fellow. I flopped into a shell-hole. My stretcher-bearers wanted to carry me back, but I wouldn’t have any of that. I kept everyone off with a revolver for forty-eight hours, and saved my own life. I couldn’t count on a spare gut waiting for me at the dressing-station. My only chance was to lie still and let it heal.’
In December, I attended a medical board; they sounded my chest and asked how I was feeling. The president wanted to know whether I wanted a few months more home-service. I said: ‘No, sir, I should be much obliged if you would pass me fit for service overseas.’ In January I got my sailing orders.
I went back an old soldier, as my kit and baggage proved. I had reduced the original Christmas-tree to a pocket-torch with a fourteen-day battery, and a pair of insulated wire-cutters strong enough to cut German wire (the ordinary Army issue would cut only British wire). Instead of a haversack, I bought a pack like the ones carried by the men, but lighter and waterproof. I had lost my revolver when wounded and not bought another; a rifle and bayonet could always be got from the battalion. (Not carrying rifle and bayonet made officers conspicuous during an attack; in most divisions now they carried them; and also wore trousers rolled down over their puttees, like the men, instead of riding-breeches – because the Germans had learned to recognize officers by their thin knees.) The heavy blankets I had brought out before were now replaced by an eiderdown sleeping-bag in an oiled-silk cover. I also took a Shakespeare and a Bible, both printed on India paper, a Catullus and a Lucretius in Latin; and two light-weight folding canvas arm-chairs – one as a present for Yates, the quartermaster, the other for myself. I wore a very thick whip-cord tunic, with a neat patch above the second button and another between the shoulders – my only salvage from the last time out, except for the reasonably waterproof pair of ski-ing boots, in which also I had been killed – my breeches had been cut off me in hospital.
I commanded a draft of ten young officers. Young officers, at this period, were expected, as someone has noted in his war-memoirs, to be roistering blades over wine and women. These ten did their best. Three of them got venereal disease at the Rouen Blue Lamp. They were strictly brought-up Welsh boys of the professional classes, had never hitherto visited a brothel, and knew nothing about prophylactics. One of them shared a hut with me. He came in very late and very drunk one night, from the Drapeau Blanc,woke me up and began telling me about his experiences. ‘I never knew before,’ he said, ‘what a wonderful thing sex is!’
I said irritably, and in some disgust: ‘The Drapeau Blanc? Then I hope to God you washed yourself.’
He was very Welsh, and on his dignity. ‘What do you mean, captain? I did wass my fa-ace and ha-ands.’
There were no restraints in France; these boys had money to spend and knew that they stood a good chance of being killed within a few weeks anyhow. They did not want to die virgins. The Drapeau Blanc saved the life of scores by incapacitating them for future trench service. Base venereal hospitals were always crowded. The troops took a lewd delight in exaggerating the proportion of army chaplains to combatant officers treated there.
At the Bull Ring, the instructors were full of bullet-and-bayonet enthusiasm, with which they tried to infect the drafts. The drafts consisted, for the most part, either of forcibly enlisted men, or wounded men returning; and at this dead season of the year could hardly be expected to feel enthusiastic on their arrival. The training principles had recently been revised. Infantry Training, 1914, laid it down politely that the soldier’s ultimate aim was to put out of action or render ineffective the armed forces of the enemy. The War Office no longer considered this statement direct enough for a war of attrition. Troops learned instead that they must HATE the Germans, and KILL as many of them as possible. In bayonet-practice, the men had to make horrible grimaces and utter blood-curdling yells as they charged. The instructors’ faces were set in a permanent ghastly grin. ‘Hurt him, now! In at the belly! Tear his guts out!’ they would scream, as the men charged the dummies. ‘Now that upper swing at his privates with the butt. Ruin his chances for life! No more little Fritzes!… Naaoh! Anyone would think that you loved the bloody swine, patting and stroking ’em like that! BITE HIM, I SAY! STICK YOUR TEETHIN HIM AND WORRY HIM! EAT HIS HEART OUT!’
Once more I felt glad to be sent up to the trenches.