For Love and Courage
Page 28
I am afraid that mine is not the only rather unhappy heart tonight as lots of the folk I am afraid are feeling my going, but I believe in the end I am doing the right thing & I only hope it may turn out to be right. Anyhow, I have lots of work ahead & very interesting work too, as it will mean starting from the very beginning, reorganizing the Battalion & training all the drafts. It is just what I want & I only hope I shall be able to do it. Anyhow I shall do what I can. There is no doubt in my own mind that folk like myself who have had previous soldiering knowledge are badly wanted to help in these Battalions.
My position is that in 30 days from the date of the last C.O. having gone sick I become Lt Col. If he comes out again, then I become 2nd-in-command. He is, they say, almost certain to get a brigade at once, directly he returns, if he does return. They tell me he was a right down good one, so I have got a lot to live up to, I am afraid!!
My love to you my darling,
Ever your Robert.
1 Chamberpot.
2 At Ypres.
3 Lt Colonel Sandeman.
4 Kitchener of Khartoum: he was killed whilst on a diplomatic mission to Russia when, on 5 June, HMS Hampshire struck a mine laid by a U-boat and sank west of the Orkney Islands, with the loss of more than six hundred lives.
5 W. H. D. Bell, Cheviot Bell’s brother.
6 General (Sir) Charles Barter.
7 Under the command of the new CO.
8 General Sir Henry Wilson.
9 The governess.
10 Gladys was a second cousin.
11 Minenwerfer (‘mine launcher’): these were German short-range mortars.
12 Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’.
13 Mrs Buxton had been offered a gardener’s cottage in the grounds of Brook Hill.
14 Brigadier-General H. E. Trevor, Brigade Commander, 103 Brigade.
15 The struggle for control of Delville Wood, largely by South African troops, began on 15 July and lasted for five days, with intense hand-to-hand fighting. It was one of the bloodiest actions of the war. The wood was finally taken by the Allies in August.
CO, 27TH BN, NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS, THE TYNESIDE IRISH
FIGHTING ON THE Somme remained intense during August and September 1916. Like Verdun, neither side could achieve a decisive victory, yet the human sacrifice continued unabated. When conceiving the plan with Sir Douglas Haig, General Joffre had intended the battle to drain Germany of her reserves, diverting troops from Verdun, but in reality the armies of both adversaries lost huge numbers of men with the Allies gaining but a few miles of territory and sustaining even greater losses.
Transferring to the infantry, Robert, now a lieutenant colonel, was given command of 27th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He hoped this new role would, at last, enable him to play a fully active role in the war, and to help bring that war to an end.
13th August 1916 – No. 235 answering 242 &?? 143!! – Gouy-Servins
My darling,
Well here I am. The old life left behind and a new one begun. I enclose you the old Squadron’s last message to me. Keep it, darling mine, for it means much to me & I have had a very sad day indeed today. One fellow simply begged & implored me to take him with me, with the tears simply streaming down his face & it was all rather awful.
Dearie mine, the men are sending you a present. They say that King’s Regulations say they mustn’t give me one, but that there is nothing to prevent them sending it to you. It will probably be a bit of plate of some sort but I knew you would love to have it.
I’ve just had a long talk with Buckin & he is most grateful & very nice about things. He’s got a ten-mile march before him on Tuesday so I think it is a good thing that he knows now. I was very glad to hear of Ralph.1 I hope his wound is bad enough to keep him out of the war till it’s over & not to permanently affect him. The war has fairly shown us how we depend on other countries hasn’t it?
I have made up my mind that if ever I come to another war I shall be an officer’s servant. There’s that beast Buckin talking away to a damned nice girl in the kitchen & I get no show at all!! It’s most unfair & it’s always the case. I’m sure if his wife knew how jolly well he got on with the local ladies & the time he spends in their society she would be horribly jealous.
The old man2 was very nice really when I went & said that he ‘hoped sincerely that he would very shortly have to touch his hat to me’. I really think he means it too as he has what he is pleased to call ‘a very high opinion’ of one.
My army was originally Tyneside Irish but are now made up with Yorkshiremen but all north country lads & a fine lot. They fought like the devil I believe from all accounts and are top-hole fellows. I’m very pleased with the few officers I have seen so far. Fine fellows, N. country & rough but look to me the absolute right sort. Tuesday I shall see them all & will let you know more then but as you say it will be difficult to tell you much in future but you shall hear what I think permissible.
Fellows get to hear, & it’s impossible not to know by putting two & two together, when operations are about to take place & then perhaps weeks before write & tell their friends who, loving to show their superior and first-hand knowledge, go & blurt it all out in a railway carriage before a lot of strangers who well may be enemy agents. There is no doubt if they closed the Ritz & Carlton too, it would do no harm. There is a lot heard by the next table to you.
Do you know, old dear, in spite of all I’m happier tonight than I have been for a very long time & I look forward to the future with the greatest pleasure. Many thanks for seeing about the helmet lining. Will you ring up Hawkes and tell them my new address as they are fixing up another helmet for me. If you add 33 to my Corps you will get my Division, similarly by adding the result of multiplying this magic figure by two and adding it to your first sum you will get my brigade!!!
I read a fine article on the landing of the force in British East Africa & the Huns kept on stirring up the wild bees with strings tied to their nests & it was most unpleasant!
I would like you to have the cottage thoroughly whitewashed & repapered.3 I will defray the expenses but I particularly want it thoroughly cleaned & papered.
14th August 1916 – Gouy-Servins
The Battalion comes out of the trenches tonight and we do a spell in the reserve area for a bit which is nice & gives me an opportunity to get the show running and enables one to get to know one’s officers etc.
I expect I shall have my work cut out for a bit, as there seems a lot to do but it is just what I want and if one can get the show running and in real good order it will be a great thing. I had no letters today so have no inspiration & am consequently off to bed.
My love to you dearie mine.
16th August 1916 – No. 237 – Ourton
I fear I didn’t write you yesterday but I was marching in the evening and old Buckin & all my kit got left behind so I had just to tumble into bed as I was. We started about 5.15 & marched along well until the last two miles when things began to go to bits, but fortunately not until the Brigadier had seen us go past!! However the men had only just come out of the trenches and their feet get soft there & they were tired.
We’ve had a good rest today & start work tomorrow. I was complaining that I had not enough work a short time ago but there’s enough work here to make your hair curl.
So far as I can tell I have got a very good lot of young officers, I doubt if there are more than one or two ‘gents’ & I am not quite sure if there are as many but they are all keen so far as I can see at present. One has got to look at it from the point of view of a ‘means to an end’ and hope for better things as time goes on. I haven’t had a letter from you for what seems years but I hope that I shall very soon get one. I’ve been moving about & so goodness knows where they have got to but when I do get them I shall have a real beano!
You would have laughed if you could have seen me marching my Battalion through the village where the Regiment is billeted. There were very few officers about but all the m
en rolled out & it was really most amusing. I had quite got over my ‘upset’ feeling at going, but I think a good many of them would have liked to have pulled me back.
I’ve got a jolly good Quartermaster I’m glad to say & the Adjutant, tho’ not a great man at smartening up the Regt, is a top-hole clerk, with shorthand & types like fun & is really very good indeed in the office. Two or three of the subalterns are really nice boys tho’ some are moderate, one of which stammers so badly he can’t speak at all. I don’t know how he could ever have been passed. So far as I can see there isn’t much chance of my C.O. returning so I hope once I get my Lt Colonelcy I shall keep it now.
I can’t think of anything more to tell you just at present old dear, & as it’s getting late I shall stop & will try & write you a better letter tomorrow tho’ I’ve got to fit 24 hours work into about 16 these days.
Love to the Chugs.
17th August 1916 – No. 238 answering 145 & 245 ??? – Ourton
I got two more lovely letters today old dear & was delighted with them and more especially with your fourleaf [clover] which is lovely old dear & more appropriate than you thought, because the Battalion, and in fact the whole brigade, wear a shamrock patch on each sleeve.
My Battalion wears a black one & each Battalion has a different colour. Really dearie, yours is awfully nice & I simply love it & so very nicely got up! Nothing could have been more suitable.
18th August 1916 – No. 239 answering 146 & 147 – Ourton
As you see I have got the paper and it is top-hole. I am simply fearfully busy, you wouldn’t realize the amount of work there is to be done – it is keeping me going hard from early morn to dewy eve but I am liking it very much and am, as I have told you, thoroughly happy. I am off to a conference of C.O.s tomorrow with the Div. Commander where I expect there will be a great deal of talk & damned little done. However I will tell you if I am mistaken tomorrow.
Poor little Wig I am so sorry to hear that she has been stung. I have been bitten to bits by mosquitoes these last few nights but got my curtain rigged last night. I had two capital letters from old Bet. Please thank her for them.
I am so glad to hear that Ralph4 is safely home & I hope he will go on alright now. Mac commands ‘B’ Squadron, Furse has ‘C’ and Russell ‘A’. Dick5 becomes 2nd-in-command & runs the HQ Mess same as I did.
We had a very good cook but a man with a fearful temper & I hear that Dick has begun to upset him already. He wanted most tactful handling & there’s not much tact left in these parts now! I did get the mackintosh alright old dear & I want you to send me one for Harry.6 He’s done me so well I should like to give him a good present. It should be a size larger than the last one you sent me.
About the petrol & paraffin. If it works all right it is worth trying but paraffin doesn’t burn clean & there is a sooty deposit & it would mean she sooted up quicker perhaps & you might experience difficulty in starting [the car] but you can do no harm at all by trying it and certainly the taxicabs all use it.
Darling mine it is 11.15 & I must stop. Many thanks for the Yachting Monthlies. When I shall find time to read them goodness knows.
My love to you my darling.
20th August 1916 – No. 240 answering 148 – Ourton
I have been very pleased with the improvement made by the Battalion, even in this short time & I expect in a week or so that things will have assumed an entirely different aspect, anyhow I hope that they will.
We are busy trying to start a band but I am very keen about it as it is a godsend on the march. I think we shall be successful all right as I have found a corporal who is a Band instructor by profession. Apparently the Irish like the pipes as well as the Scotch. Anyhow we have some & they seem to blow all day practising!!
I hear also that once one becomes a C.O. you don’t count on the Battalion leave roster & so haven’t got to take turns with anyone. However I have far too much to do at present to give the idea of leave a thought but as soon as I can, I will come. I’m awfully glad, old dear that you have got your house and your sea trip properly fixed up & I only hope that you will have decent weather when the time comes. Keep the salt & water on Teeny, it’s the only cure. I admit at once it’s yours!!! It’s an awful nuisance if the pups are going to be spiteful with errand boys, you will have to hide them.
I expect if ‘Pa’ has got any money to give away I shall be very glad of it here. Especially for the band, as really it is the very best kind of charity to give these fellows everything that you can to make their life more endurable. The infantry soldier suffers everything out here, and the effect of a little music on the march, a tune or two in his rest billets cheers him up & brings him along as none of the usual ‘comforts’ would. There’s absolutely nothing like it. The men start singing to it at once and it makes them as jolly as anything even under the most adverse circumstances.
Well darling mine, fare thee well for the present.
My love to all the dear little Chugs.
21st August 1916 – No. 241 answering 249 & 250 – Ourton
The Adjutant told me this morning that the Battalion was better already than he had ever known it before! Rather a compliment in five days but it was said quite spontaneously and not at all intended as a compliment. Anyhow there begins to show some sign of organization & tho’ things are still very far from being what I want you can simply see them growing every day & I see no reason why the Battalion shouldn’t maintain its name as the best in the brigade. Anyhow I mean it to if I can manage it by hook or crook.
As you say it was far away harder to say goodbye to the men than the officers, tho’ I was very loath to part from old Steve but he had been alienated for so long by being Jimmy’s satellite that it really made it easier. I saw so little of him really the last month. Many thanks for ‘financial details’. You will probably have £100 or so in hand at Xmas which will be something.
I’m much too busy old dear to be any sort of ‘sick’ & have settled down very much better than I dared hope. It is odd how these boys look on one as quite old & not 40!!! I am glad you like the men’s letters, they are all very nice & they really did care I think. Harry tells me that they are very down on their luck now. He used to go over for the letters & they all wanted to come back with him, so he says.
You will be able to put Lieut. Col. when you get this as I am due for it on Wednesday and shall get it this week. Harry & the horses are with me, tho’ I had to leave the pony behind. My commando talk a foreign language all right & you can hardly understand some of the men but there are so few originals left now. My Adjutant & Q.M. both are very north country and some of the other officers combine a strong Irish brogue with broad Newcastle so it’s a bit weird.
My dear old girl, mathematics isn’t my strong point, & apparently it isn’t yours. Anyhow you have not got your sum correct. Try again. Starting from the bottom the answer should be 27: 103: 37: 4: 1.7
There is not a pre-war officer in the Regt. Well dearie mine, adieu.
On the same day Buxton wrote to his wife:
Father8 has got plenty of work now smartening up this lot. They like him altho’ they think he is rather ‘mustard’ at present. He makes them turn out clean and properly dressed and there is certainly a great difference in them already. The officers are all very young and fresh out – most of the others were knocked out in the ‘Big Push’.
23rd August 1916 – No. 242 – Estaires
I went out & had a very nice evening with a fellow called Temple (old Rifle Bde) who was 2nd-in-command of this Battalion & now commands the 25th Battalion, on Monday evening. What he doesn’t know of this Trench Warfare business isn’t worth knowing as he went into the first trench that was ever made and has been in them ever since. It’s a great help having a fellow like that near one and also one who is as keen as mustard in the whole thing & a really first-class man. He did awfully well on the 1st July and with 80 men of this Battalion took a German strong point and captured 450 of them!! So far as I can see he has go
t nothing out of it.
Talking of the Battalion Commanders one of my confrères is a great big ‘hail-fellow-well-met’ sort of a bloke. He wears a diamond ring on the first finger & another huge one on his little finger & I asked my adjutant who & what he was in civil life & he told me ‘A commercial traveller’ & very well known in the North. Sounds so awfully odd after the old soldiering life, but these fellows are doing grand work, and after all they can’t be bettered these times & to tell you the truth I don’t believe that some of them could have been equalled in earlier days.
It’s a wonderful country I’m in now & from the train9 one could see nothing but cornfields as far as the eye could reach. Here all the corn is cut & in the stook & it is a most wonderful harvest. You never saw anything like it and if they get it in all right, it ought to make up to the folk for many things that they have had to suffer through the war. No doubt Germany is equally reaping the benefit & damned lucky she is. The country here is absolutely as flat as the palm of your hand, perhaps a ‘looking glass’ would be a better simile. I never saw anything like it.
The direction I’ve gone in is toward Leonardslee & about as far as Gatwick & Horley.
Give my love to the Chugs.
24th August 1916 – No. 243 answering 254 – Estaires
252 & 253 seem to be wandering somewhere but will no doubt return from their wanderings tomorrow.
I am glad to hear that Ken is the admiration of all beholders. Wasn’t it odd dearie mine, about that clover and its genuine appropriateness? I was awfully glad to get it. I laughed over your sum too, as I told you. I merely changed regiments in the same Corps to start with, which was our old friends & you were quite right in that. I got the Battalion because he didn’t want me to leave the Corps. There is no doubt old dear about the ‘right’ of the case & I am very glad & happy to be where I am & the more I do, the more convinced I am that one has done the right thing.