by E. W. Hermon
I got your letter last night alright & was very pleased with it (110). It seems a high number doesn’t it, I wonder how many more hundreds it will run into before the show is over. I think by the time it has reached 450, we should be at the end – if not actually at home. However, we shall see & I shouldn’t wonder if it were to collapse suddenly still but it is unlikely.
Our diplomacy in the Balkans seems to be looking up a bit & I hope it will.
My love to little Bet & thanks for her tin of Bullseyes.
16th August 1915 – camp at Bois des Dames
I have two nice letters to answer tonight, 112 & 113. I think it is splendid so many men in the village [Cowfold] being out & under training. I wish to goodness there were more villages like it. We shall soon want everyone either to repel an attack or make one. One side or the other must make some effort before winter sets in. I only hope that there will be a big push at the Dardanelles soon.
I am awfully glad to hear dearie, that you are not feeling too bad, of course one can’t expect you to be absolutely well but it is a comfort to know that you are not feeling things more than usual.
My dear old girl I really am very distressed about Dick, that he doesn’t seem to want to take a hand in this show, couldn’t you get hold of him and read this to him? Ask him if in a year’s time he wants to find that folk won’t speak to him. If he won’t go of his own free will he must be made to go. Is he doing anything these holidays to fit himself for the job? He is big and strong & he should be getting ready now. It worries me fearfully at times, can’t you tackle him on the family honour, surely he will uphold it? We can’t have folk pointing him out as the only boy in the county who didn’t want to go!
Please thank Mairky for her nice letter, & ask what it feels like ‘to become a little garden’ which she informs me she has grown into.
Best love to you all dearie.
18th August 1915 – camp at Bois des Dames
D.H. came into the ring [at the Horse Show] the other day & looked hard at me as tho’ he ought to know me & I know that he knew it, but there it ended.4
I am sorry to hear about the fly stuff as the Daily Mail has cracked it up so. The mosquito net has come & is simply grand but there are now no mosquitoes. Where we were before one was kept awake ages with the damned things but here they are very few but it is a good thing to have as it keeps the flies off in the morning and in the afternoon it is top-hole as it is quite impossible to have 40 winks without it.
To revert to the leave question one cannot apply for leave unless three months have elapsed since last leave, therefore if I come now I couldn’t come again before Xmas & I should like best to come when Benjamin has arrived or after you are about again but I have an idea that either the Boche will attack us or we them before very long & I couldn’t leave the squadron with any chance of either happening while I was away.
I don’t believe Germany is bankrupt yet & besides the internal resources are so great & her imports so few that I doubt if it matters. From the papers things don’t look so well with Russia today but the Balkans look better & Romania seems to have had enough of Germany’s bullying ways.
We are hoping to have a real good scrap soon but I know nothing really but it is almost as weary waiting here as it was at Watford. The future was ever a sealed book & perhaps it is as well, but I wish sometimes we were doing a bit more to hustle the Hun.
22nd August 1915 – camp at Bois des Dames
I have now got to make a very reluctant confession. Yesterday we had a jumping competition, the Signal Coy running all their own sports for the selection of their candidates for the Div. Sports. I ran Saxon & your old horse & the Judges were ill-advised enough to place your old wretch first & Saxon wasn’t noticed. Of course it was all wrong but I had to abide by the judges’ decision. I have entered them both for the Div. Sports & when I have schooled old Saxon a bit more I think he will win.
The lads are all making such jokes & what-not that I haven’t got half a chance to write you anything decent. I shall be awfully busy this week I am afraid but will try & write. I have spent all day making a most lovely heave gate for the jumping at the Sports & a triple bar but the latter looks horribly high at present.
24th August 1915 – camp at Bois des Dames
I have got two simply topping letters to answer tonight, 120 & 121.
Darling mine, I agree with you that a bird in the bush is the tops & so I will come & see you as soon as I conveniently can. Of course all this is dependent on what the Boche does to us or we to him. I don’t believe tho’ that you would really know if I wasn’t enjoying myself, because you never do know when I am pulling your leg, but joking apart I shouldn’t of course come if there was any likelihood of anything doing. If I come now, as you say, I could come again when you were up and about again which would be best as we could then do something together & shouldn’t have the old gamp fussing about, but you mustn’t expect me till you see me.
My dear old girl I’m afraid you will be disappointed but I have never for one moment asked or tried for a staff job – but you have set me thinking & I know that I could get one if I was really to set about it. My trouble is at present that I am away down on the extreme right of the line & I haven’t a single friend of the old days anywhere near here who I ever see. I can’t quite make up my mind if I should be right in asking for a job. If it were offered I should take it if it was a worthy one, but I have such an exceptionally good lot, both of officers & men and they so absolutely trust one & look up to one to do the right thing that I don’t feel that I ought to try & work a job. I see fellows getting jobs as Lieutenant Colonels on Staffs who I know I could compete with & beat & do better work. To tell you the truth there is nothing in the Div. Cav. work that can’t be done by a man, and is being done & well done, who has had no military experience. I’ve a good mind to write to Allenby & put the case to him in a way & see if there is anything going that I could do but I don’t know whether I should be doing right by the squadron.
I should hate to feel that they thought I had carted them, but really anyone could have done what I have done since we came out. Darling Lassie, I know that I could do more for the country and be better employed elsewhere if I could get it but so far as I can see there is no chance at all of getting on without scheming and I hate that – simply because I should hate these boys to feel that I had left them.
What I should like is G.S.O.2 of a Division or Brigade Major of a regular Cav. Brigade. I could do either well, but I don’t want to get on the Q side of the staff except that it would be a start & would lead to something in time perhaps but one never knows.
Lass dear I must stop now. Love to you all & many thanks to old Bet for her nice long letter. 11:15 p.m.
27th August 1915 – camp at Bois des Dames
I meant to write to you early this morning but got prevented as I got a message from Pongo, who is away on a job with his troop, that his kiddie had not been a success & I tried to get him off on leave but I cannot get him away before Sunday. I am so sorry for them as he had set such store by the kid.
It is awfully sad about poor [Graham-]Taylor, but that girl will be able to do things which will employ her thoughts & help a bit. There are, I am afraid, a great many similar cases & there is no doubt the soldier shouldn’t be married during a war, tho’ without it the nation would melt away. However you will soon be able to give your quota to lessening that 298,000 shortage last quarter.
I am going to let Barber come home on Monday Sept 6th & all being well will come myself so as to get home on Tuesday morning Sept 14th. I believe the leave train arrives in town about 5 a.m. & would come by the next one from Victoria. Sounds odd talking about a regularly organized leave service when the greatest war on record is going on but when I tell you that on Wed. we had our Div. Sports & that I won General Barter’s Silver Cup for Officers’ Jumping on your old horse before a crowd of 10,000 people of both sexes & nationalities & that two brass bands played throughout the entire
afternoon, & that yesterday I played in an ordinary station game of polo, you will cease to wonder at anything.
I was greatly amused at your ‘double’ story!! That reminds me of another story. ‘A man wounded at Dardanelles was in hospital & said to the Nurse “I want to——” (using a man’s term). She said “You mustn’t say that, say No. 1 or No. 2.” The next day the Dr going round the ward found a man under his bed clothes simply shaking with laughter & he pulled them down & asked him what it was all about & he said “The man in the next bed wants to——most awfully badly but he’s forgotten the number; I know it, but I won’t tell him!!”’
I am so sorry that it wasn’t me in your dream but perhaps it will be shortly now. My dear little Meggie, tell her it wasn’t at all intentional, far from it, & give her my Steward’s rosette as a ‘quid pro quo’.
Now for the sports. I enclose you a programme with what we did marked on it. I had a great deal to do with it & therefore my natural modesty forbids that I should acclaim it to be anything except what it was, but everyone who was there says it was top-hole. There must have been between eight & ten thousand folk looking on. Douglas Haig came & I went & spoke to him & I saw him at the polo yesterday & talked to him again & he was quite pleasant. I wasn’t going to have him ignoring me any longer so I went & shook hands with him when he came into the ring & all is well! All the boys from all round were there.
Will you send me a bottle of aspirins as I have used most of mine on other folk. Can you arrange for us to have some china tea sent out to us. There are six of us & we drink tea three times a day. You will know best how much to send.
28th August 1915 – camp at Bois des Dames
Many thanks for your 126. Chuckle on! Your vulgar old horse is quite coming round under my tuition. I am sorry that old Bob has wanted a letter but I have had much too much to do to write to any of them lately. I loved their photos & the one of Maddy & the dogs is topping.
Poor Pongo’s kid came tail first so he tells me & there were all sorts of complications besides. She was such a poor frail little thing, quite young & didn’t look as if she ever ought to have had a kid.
Short letter tonight dearie as I have a long day before me tomorrow in reconnoitring the front line. Best love.
30th August 1915 – camp at Bois des Dames
I got your two letters 127 & 128 last night when I got back from a trot round our front. We lunched off sandwiches & cake outside an ‘estaminet’ where an old woman made us some coffee & within 100 yards of her door we had to creep under a wall & go along the back of it because one was sniped at there. There was this old woman carrying on her little business all alone, right up practically in the front line.
Really the courage of these folk passes all belief. The top storey of the house had a shell hole through it & the ceiling of the room we were in was all smashed to bits with shell splinters, where they had come through the windows from a shell bursting in the road outside.
Lassie mine, I have taken heart & written to G.H.H.A.5 this morning & am now off to post it. The only thing is tho’ that he is not in very high favour just at present, I am afraid, so far as I hear, but I may be mistaken.
Henry Feilding is going as A.D.C. to old Horne6 who I expect you remember at Aldershot. I am rather glad as now they can’t say that it was I who went first. I must stop now old dear, as I must go out & it is still early. (11.30 a.m.)
3rd September 1915 – camp at Bois des Dames
They have found some jobs for the squadron to do which will last at least a fortnight so you will have to possess your soul in patience for a bit longer old dear.
Today I went down in a motor to visit our front line again, it seemed so funny motoring down there quite close to the old Boche in perfect comfort with our own guns shooting over us as we went along. The Boche was very quiet again today & we were doing all the shooting, which was pleasant.
This afternoon I spent making a brick fireplace in our mess tent & am now sitting in front of a most glorious fire which is simply topping. It is a screaming success & has cheered us immensely after two days & nights of continuous wet & bitter cold. I wish I could take it into my tent with me. I am going to move my camp again now which is a bore, but we shall go inside for a bit I think. Get the men in barns or somewhere & ourselves into a very nice house indeed if we get the one we are after.
Again I had hoped to write you a better letter but what little I would like to tell you touches the military side of one’s life and I cannot put it on paper. Will you post me that new mackintosh of mine please. The summer seems to have quite broken up at present tho’ I still hope for another six weeks’ fine weather.
Best love old dear.
4th September 1915 – camp at Bois des Dames
This camp is most unpleasant of an afternoon. We are just behind the rifle range & a good many ricochets come along here & rather a nasty whistley one came then. I don’t know where the Guards Div. are to be but they are a long way off at present. Many thanks for the aspirins.
You mustn’t be too excited old girl over me & my affairs, I am not sure myself whether I regret writing [to General Allenby]. Not much harm can come of it. I would rather be taken on the Division here on merit alone if I possibly could, only now the bombing is off I see them much less frequently. I am going to lunch with them tomorrow & then on to arrange a bombing competition for the Division.
Thank old Bet for her nice letter.
5th September 1915 – camp at Bois des Dames
The enclosed from Allenby tonight. Very nice & kind, but as he says not a very good job. As it happens since writing him I have had work galore thrust upon me & for three weeks at least I couldn’t in common fairness leave this Div. I have written to him tonight telling him that I couldn’t leave the Division now without letting them down & as they have been so kind I feel I shouldn’t be playing the game with them.
There it stands, & I have been offered a job & refused it. Whether another will roll up or not remains to be seen, but right or wrong I don’t feel I have any right to leave the Div. just at present. I have had a very long day today dearie, & must stop. I will try & write tomorrow but you mustn’t expect too much as my present job will keep me very busy.
A cartoon sent to Ethel by EWH as they were expecting their fifth child.
1 Charles Moykopf & Co., a well-known shoemaker in Piccadilly.
2 General Sir Richard Haking.
3 General Sir Henry Rawlinson.
4 Hermon had known Douglas Haig in South Africa during the Boer War and was annoyed that he pretended not to know him now he was a general.
5 General Allenby
6 Henry Feilding had been appointed ADC to the GOC of 2 Division, General Sir Henry Horne, and later served with the Coldstream Guards. He wrote to Major Hermon saying he was travelling to Marseilles via Paris to the ‘sunny south’ (Egypt). He was killed in action in 1917.
THE BATTLE OF LOOS
EARLY IN SEPTEMBER 1915 an artillery duel took place between the Germans and the Allies in the Arras area lasting thirteen days. In the meantime the Allies prepared for an offensive at the end of the month with the intention of diverting German troops from the East where the Russians were facing the possibility of defeat. The French army were to attack at Champagne and the British at Loos.
Sir John French had serious misgivings about the choice of Loos for a major assault as it was a heavily populated mining district, obstructed by slag heaps and mine shafts. However, Kitchener ordered him to attack in support of French troops, and a concentrated artillery barrage began several days before the attack. On the 25th the battle commenced with the British army using chlorine gas for the first time, in retaliation for the German use of gas at Ypres in April. One hundred and fifty tons were released in no man’s land from 5,243 cylinders, but as Robert here observes, some of it blew back across the British lines, so its effectiveness, although initially allowing the British troops to advance more than 4,000 yards, was debatable.
For ‘C’ Squadron it was a time of intense preparation for the attack planned for the end of the month. They were in demand for duties such as traffic control, trench construction and as guides for the transport of gas cylinders to the front line. The latter occupation was carried out with the utmost secrecy – Robert refers only to a special ‘job’ when writing to his wife. Fortunately she would have had no inkling of the real nature of his mission.
8th September 1915 – camp at Bois des Dames
Sorry I have not written you much these last two days but I have been very busy indeed marking out traffic routes & controlling it. I got old Steve to write you a postcard last night for me asking for refills for my lamp which I am using a good bit now as I have a lot of night work to do.
I did so enjoy the Chugs’ letters, will you please thank Bet & Bob for their nice long ones & also dear little Meggie for her very touching postcard. Our family party has been rather broken up as Pong hasn’t come back from leave yet & I cannot understand why. He should have been back on Monday and he hasn’t returned nor have I had any word of any sort. I expect his wife is very bad & he has managed to get leave from the W.O. I am afraid we shall never be quite the same happy family again & everything has been so very jolly so far.
Benjamin is to be called ‘Charles’ if he is Benjamin. If he isn’t Benjamin well then he isn’t.
Best love old darling.
FROM 10TH TO 18th September, ‘C’ Squadron was employed digging a communication trench from Mazingarbe to the front line, known as ‘London Road’, in preparation for the Loos attack. This work involved cutting a trench nearly 2,000 yards long through solid chalk, sometimes under enemy fire.
