George Laurie - Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie

A wet, muggy morning. I have been waiting for 3 hours to accompany the General round the lines since 6.30 a.m. At 9.30 I telephoned in, and found that he had gone to some other duty and forgotten me! However, it cannot be helped. He and I are really very friendly. More fighting on our right, with very heavy big gun fire. I expect the brickfields at La Bassée are again being a scene of mortal combat. We were ordered last night to try to ascertain if the Germans still occupied their trenches as usual; so we crept out and looked about, and found everything much the same. As to the khaki-coloured shirts, would you have them put away by sizes, please, when they are made up, till wanted; the present ones will wear out with a rush from being worn night and day, and from having been badly washed and scorched when drying, so they may be wanted in a hurry. Whilst waiting about here this morning, I amused myself by looking for shell holes round our ruins. So far as I can see, they are everywhere, like the holes in a sponge for numbers. My artillery is just going to blow up a house where the enemy hid a machine gun last night, and which opened on us during the night and thought we did not know! I also have another R.A. officer throwing tins full of gun cotton and nails into the German trenches at this very moment. A nice Christian occupation, truly! I ought to know in a few days if there is any chance of second leave or not.

I enclose you a letter from one of my old Generals, Sir John Keir. I wrote to congratulate him on receiving the “K” to his C.B., which I helped to win him at Boshbult, S. Africa, 1902. Do not trouble to send it back again. They have no children, and I have never met Lady Keir so far, but if I get back to England no doubt I shall, though his division is in Cork at present. Yesterday we were once more under heavy fire. One shell exploded beside two men who were trying to make some tea. I am sure the poor fellows, without thinking, gave away their position by having too large a fire. Anyway, this shell burnt everything round them, including the flaps of a barn door standing upright, with nothing inflammable near, but the doors were in a blaze in a moment, and also their clothes. One man had 18 holes in him; the other was dreadfully scorched and hurt. I gave him morphia tablets, but I’m afraid they did not do him much good; it was a mercy that the doctor arrived soon to give him a proper hypodermic injection. In one place we found a piece of shell about the size of a half lb. iron weight which had forced its way right through, and was just under the skin on the other side. We got that out, but he died shortly after. They shelled us again during the night, the brutes; however, we did not bother our heads much about that, and I had a very good night’s rest from 10 o’clock until four a.m. After all, it was not G—— S——’s husband that I met the other day. He turned out to be Capt. Sherlock of a Militia Artillery regt., one of the family, I fancy, who was tea-planting or something at Singapore before the war. As to smoked herrings, I cannot say that I am very fond of them, so I think that at present it would be as well not to send anything but cakes, mincepies, or tartlets. Mincepies are presumably over, so continue to send jam tartlets, please. Some day I will try to get our cook here to see what he can do, but I am afraid our soldier man needs more instruction before he can venture on pastry! Now I must stop, as I have a great deal of other business to get done….

They have started shelling us again, bless them!

I was so busy yesterday that I had not a chance of sending you more than a postcard. They sent for me to a hurried conference of the General. I then rode off with another Colonel some miles, and after putting on waders had to reconnoitre our new trenches and go over other ground, marching along these under fire, with the mud, as usual, halfway up to my waist. Such is life over here. I returned about 3 o’clock, and then I had to settle the endless questions which arise in a regt. on active service, from getting the men new boots to arranging whether it was safe for the shoemaker to have a fire in his corner whilst he was busy cobbling. So far the tarts have not arrived. Perhaps they will presently. All the war news looks good; but it is a big war. I only wish I had been out with the “Rufford” at Weston last week. Such a horrible day here, raining hard and everything uncomfortable. I have managed to squeeze into a small house with my adjutant Capt. Wright, and he has to sleep on the boards where we have our meals, whilst the old lady and her servant cook our rations at 1-½ francs a day each. You should hear the French we talk!…

Glad the children liked the “meet.”

Your letter did not turn up yesterday! I have been most busy with various things. If you saw my men in a spinning mill sleeping under engines, etc., you would wonder how we exist! Of course, Spring is coming on, and we shall then have to go in for business of the worst type; so whilst someone else is holding the lines, we are now trying to get our men fit for this work. Meals here are quaint, run by a servant girl. She brings breakfast of coffee without milk and an omelette, but we always have our ration of bacon as well. That was a difficulty at first, as neither the adjutant’s nor my book gave the French for bacon. However, by introducing the word cochon , we arrived at the fact that here amongst her class it was called porc —so there we are! Then luncheon is a sad affair, with generally some cold thing followed only by cheese. At tea (made very weak) from our ration stuff, she now gives us toast, though there, again, we had no such word in our book. I managed to remember that it was pain roti , and we got along. Dinner is not bright, but yesterday we were blessed with a pudding of rice strongly flavoured with vanilla. To-day I am off for a wade with my officers to show them what they must learn about my new lines. Such a trouble as it is getting there, with shell flying and bursting all around one, and rifle bullets humming everywhere. I hate this business cordially, but what will you! If these scamps are not driven back, they will try to rule the world, and will kill and burn as they think fit, and that will not do at all! The Russians seem to be doing good work in killing the unfortunate Germans. Let us hope that the whole thing will go with a run now, and that it will not last much longer…. Love to the children….

P.S. —I lost two N.C.Os. killed yesterday by one bullet through their heads, and another of my poor men had his tongue cut out.

My dearest F——

I am writing this in great haste, as I am just off to the General’s on important business. I was most interested in reading various friends’ letters on my “mention.” What it has really been in the way of being shot at would cover a small campaign three times over, and I do not doubt many of my officers and men have had even a worse time than myself, and there is very much more hard work to come. The French Army can always produce fresh troops for each fresh job, but our smaller army has to send the same troops up to everything, and then when the regiment is reduced to fragments, it is filled up with anyone from anywhere, and to the authorities it is the same as the original good regiment. Before I forget, and in case anything happens to me, I want to tell you again that all my securities are at Cox; there is a list of them in my despatch case, and you will find one lot of title deeds that I had not as yet had time to look over in the Oak Room. I have been so hustled ever since coming from India that it has been impossible to attend to such things….