by John Garth
‘Tonight I cannot sleep…’: GBS to JRRT, 15 August 1916. Search for JRRT: ibid., 19 August 1916.
pp.178-9
Signal officers’ course: ‘Communications in the 25th Division’; 25th Division signal company war diary.
p.179
‘I want you to regard…’, etc.: GBS to JRRT, 19 August 1916. Reunion: Biography, 85, asserts that they met at Acheux, where JRRT diary notes he slept every night from 15 to 23 August. But GBS, 19 August 1916, indicates no plan to travel to Acheux that day. It seems as likely that JRRT, hearing his friend had inquired after him, made his way to Hédauville.
pp.179-80
Debate over TCBS: JRRT to GBS, 12-13 August 1916, published almost in full in Letters, 9-10 (‘holiness and nobility’, etc.); GBS to JRRT, 19 August 1916 (‘Who knows whether Rob…’, etc.)
p.180
End of the TCBSian dream: possibly JRRT concluded that the TCBS was finished not because of RQG’s death itself, but because of the reactions of the surviving members to it: perhaps he felt CLW and GBS had lost sight of the TCBSian ideal of ‘greatness’ (the potential to ‘kindle a new light…in the world’), by confounding it with an heroic ideal of ‘greatness’ (death in battle in a good cause). But it is impossible to be sure in the absence of CLW’s letter, to which JRRT’s and GBS’s respond.
p.181
End to doubt: GBS to JRRT, 19 August 1916. GBS’s recent writings: ibid., 25 July 1916.
‘a sacrifice of blood outpoured’, etc.: ‘For RQG’, GBS, A Spring Harvest, 69. ‘Let us tell quiet stories of kind eyes’, ibid. 71. ‘The Last Meeting’, ‘Memories’ and ‘Sun and shadow and winds of spring’, ibid. 58, 63, and 70, may also refer to RQG.
p.182
Birmingham battalions (footnote): Carter, Birmingham Pals, 103.
W. H. Payton: RQG to EK, 6 June 1916.
pp.182-3
R. S. Payton’s death; ‘Heaven grant…’: RCG to JRRT, 15 August 1916. With 14th Warwickshires on Somme: Carter, Birmingham Pals, 69, 173, 176-86.
p.183
Debating society: KESC, March 1912, 15-16. Character: ibid., June 1912, 41. ‘the Barrovian-par-excellence’: CLW to JRRT, 19 March 1912.
Speech Day: KESC, October 1916, 60.
pp.183-5
‘frequent meetings with JR’, ‘At first nebulous…’, etc.: CLW to GBS, 30 August 1916.
p.185
‘On the constitution…’: GBS to JRRT, 16 September 1916. Bouzincourt meal, 22 August: JRRT diary; Biography, 85.
The Earthly Paradise: Wade-Gery gave JRRT vol. v in Bouzincourt, date unknown; Douglas A. Anderson to the author.
TEN In a hole in the ground
p.186
‘That’s all spoof,’ etc.: Norman, Sunday Times Magazine, 15 January 1967.
Dugout: JRRT diary. ‘Kortirion’ revisions: Douglas A. Anderson to the author.
‘Some people talk…’: RQG to EK, 3 March 1916. GBS’s reading in France: ibid., 5 April 1916.
‘The Burial of Sophocles’: GBS to JRRT, 2 December 1915. GBS sends home JRRT piece: ibid., 25 July 1916.
‘ghastly gallows-trees’: Blunden, Undertones of War, 134.
p.187
‘The wood was never…’: Douie, The Weary Road, 141-2.
‘I think a lot…’: Letters, 231.
‘down in dugouts…’, ‘It did not make…’: Letters, 78.
‘The Old British Line…’: Blunden, Undertones of War, 25-6.
In GBS’s footsteps: 19th LF war diaries; Platt papers. ‘like a treasure’: GBS to JRRT, 12 January.
pp.187-8
Thiepval Wood, 24-7 August: 11th LF war diary.
p.188
End of course: 25th Division signals company diary. Military situation, 24 August: Stedman, Thiepval, 84; Cuttell, 148 Days on the Somme, 196.
‘always long…’: RQG to EK, 6 March 1916. ‘the joy of getting out…’: ibid., 26 February 1916.
Bouzincourt, 27-8 August: 11th LF diary; JRRT diary.
pp.188-9
Trench duty, 28-30 August: the 11th LF were in a series of small trenches south-west of Pole Trench; 11th LF war diary; 25th Division signal company war diary; ‘Communications in the 25th Division’; Lancashire Fusiliers’ Annual 1917, 224-5; Cuttell, 148 Days on the Somme, 130.
p.188
‘I feel that if I survive…’: RQG to EK, 3 March 1916.
‘an appalling bit of line…’; ‘extraordinary cheeriness’: Evers memoir.
p.189
French language and cooking: Letters, 288-9. Wine: ibid. 314, 405.
France trip, 1913; ‘the vulgarity…’: Biography, 22, 67-8. ‘Gallophobia’: Biography, 129.
JRRT’s French: d’Ardenne, ‘The Man and the Scholar’, in Salu and Farrell (eds.), J. R. R. Tolkien, Scholar and Storyteller, 35.
‘I can see clearly…’: Letters, 111.
Westward, 6-12 September: 11th LF war diary.
p.190
‘endless marching…’, etc.: Family Album, 40.
Franqueville, 12-25 September: 11th LF war diary; The Lancashire Fusiliers’ Annual 1917, 225; Kincaid-Smith, The 25th Division in France and Flanders, 18.
New signallers for each battalion: 25th Divisional signal company war diary.
2nd Lt. L. R. Huxtable: service record; 11th LF war diary. To 13th LF: The Times, 28 July 1915; ‘L. R. Huxtable. 13th Lancs Fusrs. F & G Lines’ appears in Tolkien’s hand on an envelope attached to GBS to JRRT, 23, 24, and 26 May 1916.
Signal course: Potts papers. JRRT’s understudy: ‘Communications in the 25th Division’ states that one officer per battalion was trained at Franqueville as battalion signal officer.
Disagreement with superior; ‘I am intensely sorry…’: GBS to JRRT, 16 September 1916. J. C. P. E. Metcalfe in command: service record.
‘Hux’; shares tent: JRRT diary. In ‘A’ Company: Fawcett- Barry papers.
‘the first War…’, etc.: Letters, 111.
p.191
Military situation: Cuttell, 148 Days on the Somme, 199-200.
pp.191-3
Thiepval Wood, 27-29 September: ibid., 202; war diaries of the 11th LF, 74th Brigade, brigade signal officer, and 25th Division signal company; JRRT diary; Latter, Lancashire Fusiliers, 163-5; The Lancashire Fusiliers’ Annual 1917, 225-8; Kincaid-Smith, The 25th Division in France and Flanders, 18.
p.192
Captive officer: Biography, 84-5.
‘If guards insufficient…’: ‘Summary of training circulars (advisory)’, issued to JRRT on 26 September 1916 (Bodleian Tolkien).
Captain shot: Roger Ganly; Lancashire Fusiliers’ Annual 1916, 235-6.
R. Mellor’s ‘Ode to a Fullerphone’ (footnote): in Jimmy, journal of the Royal Corps of Signals in the Middle East (with thanks to Louis Meulstee’s Wireless for the Warrior website).
p.193
2nd Lt. Stanley Rowson’s disappearance: Pte. Connor, in Rowson’s service record (‘I was blown…’); Fawcett-Barry papers.
‘Dear Sir…’: Mrs M. Sumner to the commanding officer of ‘B’ Company, 26 September 1916 (Bodleian Tolkien). The letter must have been passed to JRRT because he was battalion signal officer.
Englebelmer and Bouzincourt, 30 September-6 October: JRRT diary; 11th LF war diary.
pp.193-5
Ferme de Mouquet, Zollern Redoubt, and Ovillers Post, 7-18 October: JRRT diary; war diaries of the 11th LF, 74th Brigade, and 25th Division HQ and signal company; ‘Communications in the 25th Division’; The Lancashire Fusiliers’ Annual 1917, 228-9; Latter, Lancashire Fusiliers, 170-1; and Cuttell, 148 Days on the Somme, 202-4.
p.194
Ferme de Mouquet map: 19th LF war diary.
Huxtable wounded: service record; JRRT diary.
p.195
Unit designations: ‘25th Division Code Letter Calls’, 11 October 1916 (Bodleian Tolkien). They are marked in crayon on a map incorporating intelligence for the attack on Regina Trench (Bodleian Tolkien; reproduced in Life and Legend, 32); ‘WF’ denotes JR
RT’s battalion HQ in Hessian Trench, near the junction with Lancashire Trench. (The German position due north of battalion HQ is now occupied by Regina Trench Cemetery.) The 11th LF line of advance is bounded by vertical lines in purple crayon. The map appears, with westward extension, in 74th Brigade and 25th Division war diaries and was probably drawn by army cartographers, not by JRRT as stated in Family Album, 40. On the other hand, its red and black ink, title-lettering, and compass rose are reminiscent of his style; while the equally amateur RGQ spent much time making maps for his battalion and brigade (RQG to EK, 29 February 1916).
GBS’s worst apprehensions: GBS to JRRT, 19 October 1915. Mabinogion; ‘Raconteur…’; ‘his discovery…’: ibid., 10 September 1916. Lost lunacy; ‘Perhaps this note…’: ibid., 16 September 1916.
p.196
‘Thoughts of leave…’: ibid., 3 October 1916.
JRRT’s leave ever imminent: Biography, 85. ‘universal weariness’: Letters, 10.
‘There were times…’: Douie, The Weary Road, 168.
‘astonished that flesh…’: Alfred Bundy, quoted in Brown, The Imperial War Museum Book of the Somme, 225.
pp.196-9
Hessian Trench and Regina Trench, 19-22 October: JRRT diary; war diaries of the 11th LF, 74th Brigade, and 25th Division HQ and signal company; ‘Communications in the 25th Division’; The Lancashire Fusiliers’ Annual 1917, 229-34; Latter, Lancashire Fusiliers, 171-3; Kincaid-Smith, The 25th Division in France and Flanders, 20-22; Miles, Military Operations, France and Belgium 1916, 463; Cuttell, 148 Days on the Somme, 204.
pp.198-9
Padre’s experience; ‘Some had the will…’, etc.: Evers memoir.
p.199
Horseback encounter with tank: Potts papers.
pp.199-200
Albert to Beauval, 22-28 October: JRRT diary; 11th LF war diary; The Lancashire Fusiliers’ Annual 1917, 233-4.
p.200
JRRT falls ill: medical board, 2 December 1916, in JRRT service record.
Lice blamed on German trenches: Carrington, A Subaltern’s War, 47.
‘On one occasion…’: Evers memoir. The signals officer in the captured dugout could equally be Lt. W. H. Reynolds, Tolkien’s predecessor in the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers and then his superior at brigade level.
p.201
Beauval to Le Touquet, 28-29 October: JRRT diary. The Duchess of Westmorland Hospital was officially known as the No. 1 Red Cross Hospital.
Battalion losses and drafts: figures for 28 June-22 October 1916; 25th Division adjutant and administrative staff war diaries.
ELEVEN Castles in the air
p.205
Itinerary; fever: JRRT diary and service record.
Writes to Lt.-Col. L. G. Bird: Capt. E. Munday to JRRT, 8 November 1916 (Bodleian Tolkien).
The Asturias: Gibson and Prendergast, The German Submarine War 1914-1918, 21; Platt papers (describing a crossing on the same ship in June 1916). Impressions of a ‘Blighty boat’: Ferguson diary. Moribund wards: Keegan, The Face of Battle, 267.
‘sea-girdled…’: Tolkien, ‘The Lonely Isle’, Leeds University Verse 1914-1924, 57.
‘like a death’: Cater, The Daily Telegraph, 29 November 2001, 23.
pp.205-6
First Southern General Hospital: Brazier and Sandford, Birmingham and the Great War, 49, 154-8.
p.206
T. K. Barnsley: service record; CLW to JRRT, 16 November 1916. Molly Gilson: MCG to EK, 10 July 1916. Major L. Gamgee: ibid.; Hutton, King Edward’s School, Birmingham, 164; Heath, Service Record of King Edward’s School, Birmingham, 55.
Source of hobbit-name Gamgee: Letters, 88, 245, 348, 410.
‘Lt-Col Bird wishes me…’: Capt. E. Munday to JRRT, 8 November 1916 (Bodleian Tolkien). Lt. V. H. Kempson: Lancashire Fusiliers’ Annual 1917, 233.
‘Stay a long time…’, etc.: GBS to JRRT, 16 November 1916. Forwarded letter to CLW: ibid., 18 November 1916. ‘If you had offered me…’: CLW to JRRT, 16 November 1916. JRRT sends poems: ibid., 8 December 1916.
pp.206-7
‘The Town of Dreams and the City of Present Sorrow’: LT2, 295-7.
p.207
Medical board: JRRT service record. Correspondence address: 22 November 1916 form, ibid. JRRT considers Royal Engineers: CLW to JRRT, 8 December 1916. T. E. Mitton: KES register; Heath, Service Record of King Edward’s School, Birmingham, 102.
pp.207-8
‘The Grey Bridge at Tavrobel’: published (like ‘Tinfang Warble’) in the late 1920s in a journal referred to by JRRT as ‘I.U.M.’ (Hammond with Anderson, Bibliography, 344; Douglas A. Anderson to the author.)
p.207
Tavrobel: Parma Eldalamberon 11, 69. Haywood: LT2, 328.
Heraldic devices (footnote): Parma Eldalamberon 13, 93-6.
p.208
‘magnificent’, etc.: CLW to JRRT, 8 December 1916.
p.209
‘rather below his usual standard’, etc.: CLW to JRRT, 16 November 1916. Billeting officer; ‘Fur undercoats…’, etc.: 19th LF war diary. ‘sheer vacancy’: GBS to JRRT, 16 September 1916. ‘for such I am…’: ibid., 16 November 1916.
‘My career in the Army…’: GBS to JRRT, 12 January. ‘The Corps Commander…’: ibid., 18 November 1916.
‘engaging rascal’, etc.: RQG, report on GBS’s paper ‘Early English Ballads’, KESC, December 1911, 90. ‘wild and whole-hearted admirer’: ibid., 3 February 1916.
p.210
Military writing: Keegan, The Face of Battle, 20-2. ‘Owing to hostile MG fire…’: GBS’s intelligence report, 1 July 1916, 19th LF war diary.
‘Who battled have with bloody hands…’: GBS, ‘We who have bowed ourselves to time’, A Spring Harvest, 49. ‘Shapes in the mist…’: ‘Memories’, ibid. 63.
Riding experiences: Ruth Smith to JRRT, 13 November 1916.
‘I hope I shall be able…’: GBS to JRRT, 16 November 1916.
p.211
GBS’s death: GBS service record; 19th LF war diary; Ruth Smith to JRRT, 22 December 1916 (‘after that he quickly sank…’). Words of CO (Major J. Ambrose Smith) to Ruth Smith: ibid., 26 December 1916.
pp.211-12
‘O seven times happy…’: GBS, ‘The Burial of Sophocles’, A Spring Harvest, 77. History of poem: ibid. 7; GBS to JRRT, 2 December 1915. Riposte to axiom about those the Gods love: ibid., 9 February 1916.
p.212
‘My dear JR…’: CLW to JRRT, 16 December 1916. GBS as his mother’s chief support: ibid., 18 January 1917.
Request for poems: Ruth Smith to JRRT, 22 December 1916. ‘The Poetic and Mythologic Words of Eldarissa’: Parma Eldalamberon 12, xvii-xxi, 29-106 passim. If JRRT left his Qenya lexicon at home when he went to France (as seems likely in view of Smith losing ‘The Burial of Sophocles’), perhaps this new word list was written in hospital in Birmingham so he could refamiliarize himself with Qenya. It adds little to the content of the lexicon (upon which he continued to work), and makes no attempt at alphabetical order.
pp.212, 214
‘Early chart of names’; Earendl, etc.: Parma Eldalamberon 13, 98-9.
p.214
‘almost fully formed’: Letters, 215. JRRT recalled that ‘The Fall of Gondolin’ was ‘written in hospital and on leave after surviving the Battle of the Somme in 1916’ (Letters 221; cf. 366). At Le Touquet he had a high fever but by the end of the second week in November he was writing letters from the Birmingham University Hospital; his handwriting on a 22 November form (service record) was firm and assured. He also said the tale emerged ‘during sick-leave at the end of 1916’ (215; cf. 345). Other letters (345, 386) indicate that composition continued into 1917. Feasibly the tale was written after ‘The Cottage of Lost Play’ (see Chapter 12), and the hospital in question might have been in Harrogate, where he spent most of March 1917.
pp.215-23
Aryador, etc.: where possible, names and other readings in ‘The Fall of Gondolin’ are given as first written, in the text referred to by its editor, Christopher Tolkien, as �
�Tuor A’ (LT2, 202-3). But most quotations here are from the revised text, ‘Tuor B’ (which was written over the top of the original, largely obscuring it, and is published in LT2, 149-97). To give one illustrative example of the name changes involved, the shadow land of Aryador became by emendation to the first manuscript Mathusdor and then Dor Lómin, which was the name that endured.
p.215
‘he wandered…’: LT2, 151.
p.216
‘Now there dwelt…’: ibid., 153-4.
Tuor at 23: ‘Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin’, Unfinished Tales, 20. ‘Oxford “sleepies”’: Biography, 73. ‘dream of the gods’: LT2, 159.
‘hide their land…’: ibid., 162.
p.217
‘stand as long as Taniquetil…’: ibid. 171. ‘No tide of evil…’: LT2, 297.
‘That, I suppose…’: 1964 interview with Denis Gueroult, BBC Sound Archives.
‘little, delicate, beautiful creatures’: CLW to JRRT, 1 March 1916. ‘small and slender and lithe’: LT2, 198 (note 18).
p.218
kalimbardi, etc.: Parma Eldalamberon 12, 44. Calum(oth) (footnote): Parma Eldalamberon 13, 99. ‘folk of dreadful hate’: LT2, 160.
‘That you are going to win…’: RCG to JRRT, 14 August 1916. ‘for all the evil…’: JRRT to GBS, 12 August 1916 (Letters, 10; reading clarified by Douglas A. Anderson).
p.219
‘I’ve never had those…’: Norman, Sunday Times Magazine, London, 15 January 1967, 34-6.
‘I think the orcs…’: Letters, 82. ‘beauty and grace…’: ibid. 85.
‘they of the Heavenly Arch…’: LT2, 173.
p.220
‘the subterranean…’, ‘Their hearts…’: LT2, 159-60.
orc: Letters, 177-8; Morgoth’s Ring, 124, 422; JRRT, ‘Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings’, in Lobdell (ed.), A Tolkien Compass, 171.
Balrog: Parma Eldalamberon 11, 21, 42; see also LT1, 240.
‘From the greatness…’, ‘beasts like snakes…’: LT2, 169.
‘smiths and sorcerers’, ‘iron so cunningly linked…’: ibid. 170. ‘by reason of the exceeding…’, ‘their hollow bellies…’: ibid. 176.
p.221
‘the icthyosaurus, jabberwocks…’: civilian Frederick Arthur Robinson, quoted in Brown, The Imperial War Museum Book of the Somme, 267. Ernst, Celebes: see Cork, A Bitter Truth, 170, 258-60. ‘The monster approached…’: The Times, 25 October 1916, citing the Dusseldorfer Generalanzeiger. ‘like fairy-tales of war…’: Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told.
