Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

19th. Warmer, but everything soaking wet. The mud! Got into A Company and saw Albert. Lots of old letters. Birthday box from home. Thought about Rosie a great deal. Somehow she keeps me going.

Hutch said, ‘Why do the Huns have a black sandbag every few yards?’ Became quite a topic of conversation. Decided to find a German speaker who could shout very loudly, so that we could ask. Failed. Decided to shout question in French. Nothing doing, so still in ignorance. Probably just took a delivery of black hessian.

20th. 0400. Marched to Kemmel in the rain. Really ripping quarters in a school. I allow they’re the best we’ve had so far. Wooden floors to sleep on! Rain rain rain. Received a hamper from Fortnum & Mason thanks to Mr McCosh. Shared it with section. Oh what a treat. Practically cried with joy. Hutch got cooked sausages all wrapped up, still wonderfully edible.

Hutch said, ‘If I cop it, will you take care of my diary?’

I said, ‘I thought you were writing letters.’ He replied, ‘Well, a diary is a kind of letter, isn’t it?’

I said, ‘Is it?’ and he said, ‘It’s a letter to whoever’s going to read it in the future. You might even read it yourself when you’re old, and then it’s like a letter to yourself.’

Asked him where it was and he said knapsack, wrapped up in bit of mackintosh. Asked if anything I’d like him to do, and I said, ‘Go and see Rosie,’ and he said ‘What should I say?’

Said, ‘Tell her I died well. Even if I died screaming with my legs blown off. Tell her to go ahead without me. Tell her that I was loved by my comrades,’ and Hutch said, ‘Well, that’s true, even though you’re a Yank.’

Gave him Rosie’s address and he put it in the back of his diary.

Stood side by side, at the ready, and Hutch said, ‘I love the smell of bacon in the morning. It takes you straight home.’ Delicious whiff of impending breakfast washing over us from the support lines. Hutch nodded in the Fritz’s direction and said, ‘I wonder what that lot have for breakfast.’

Said, ‘By all accounts it’s sausage made from Belgian babies.’

21st. Still raining. Slack day. Truly needed it. Drank some red wine yesterday, and also water, and one of them has upset my stomach. Rosie sent sterilising pills and am going to use them in my H2O.

22nd. Very cold. Germans shelled the hill as usual. Fatigues carrying bricks up to firing trench. Hell, absolute hell. Weight of bag about 75 lb. Fired on by snipers. Through mud up to knees. Cover behind dead animals etc. Dead French in dugout. One bullet missed me by a yard. Was glad to get back.

23rd. Aeroplanes. Shrapnel on hill as usual. Much brighter day. Started at 4.45. Finished at 11.45.

24th. Aeroplanes overhead. Daniel came and stunted. Marched to billets in school. Slept soundly.

Hutch watches the enemy shells flying over, to see where they’ll land. Don’t like that game at all. Have to duck down in a split second. German gunners spent the afternoon bombarding ruined farmhouse. Completely pointless, terrible waste of ammunition. Suppose they want to keep busy. I like the sound of Jack Johnsons, as long as they’re at a decent distance. The sausages come over broadside on. Make the loudest bang conceivable. Rings inside your head. Hate the whiz-bangs at night.

25th. Inspection 10.30. Moved into church for the night, slept on chairs.

26th. Very wobbly service going on when I awoke. Parade 7 a.m. full kit — expected an attack by Prussian friends. Funeral service and baptism after breakfast. Rather weird experience. It was so barbaric — bells and Latin and incense. Concert in the evening. Very funny. Officers dressed as French tarts, down to a T.

Am getting ribbed because some of the rifle ammo is misfiring or not firing at all, and the guilty ammo is American. Do feel a little guilty about the American rounds. Huge task to find and remove them. A lot of our shells are duds. They go over and land, but no explosion. Daniel came and stunted again.

ON THE 1ST of February, it was turning very much colder, and it occured to Rosie that she could unravel old things and make new ones. She reasoned that if she were Ash, she would want a balaclava and mittens, so she set about dismantling an old scarf that had begun to fall apart on its own. Ottilie kept her company, turning some worn-out sheets side-to-middle so that the servants could have them.

On the 3rd of February there was such a fearsome gale all night that Rosie just lay in bed and shuddered. She could not sleep nor turn her mind off for thinking of what it must be like for Ashbridge. Even praying could not calm her agitation because all her prayers turned into desperate pleading.

Her mother was sixty on the 6th and she and her sisters went to a concert at the Queen’s Hall. Rosie could not remember the programme. She was still visiting the Cottage Hospital almost every day, and was beginning to find it both more easy and more comforting than it had been, because nothing lifts one out of misery more effectively than being inspired by sympathy.

On the 10th there was good news, which was that Bill Burman was out of hospital. He came to dinner with his wife, and was obviously in severe pain. He grimaced and winced a great deal, and it was awkward to sit him down at table because the underneath of it was somewhat complex and he unable to bend his leg at the knee. Even so, he seemed quite cheerful. He said that he was glad he’d done his bit, and was just as glad he was out of it. He said he had seen things too ghastly to describe, and that he did not feel that he had really taken it all in yet. He said that the jitters often take a long time to arrive, according to the doctors. Now he had the worry of his brother Edward being out there. His golf club had appointed him their new secretary, apparently, and he was very pleased about that. It was quite a consolation. He had been thinking that he would help to set up a local firewatch, because the Germans were clearly very keen to wage war on civilians as well as on soldiers.

He and Rosie had a sparkling little dispute about whether it was time to give up thees and thous in modern verse. Bill said that there were so many words that rhymed with thee and thou that it would be a shame to give them up, because it would limit what one can say, and Rosie maintained that there was always another way to say the same things. They did agree that spelling rhymes ought to be disallowed. Bill asked Rosie if she would read them some of her verses, but she said that she did not feel she had written anything good enough yet.

27TH. ALL SORTS of inspections etc. Orders to stand to at half-hour’s notice. Kaiser’s birthday attack expected. Aeroplanes. Route march. Pay parade — fifteen francs!

Germans are using their dead to consolidate parapets. Stink abominable when wind shifts. Don’t know how they put up with it. Bad enough casual bodies lying around in places where unretrievable. Out in front are two French officers, beautiful in scarlet and blue, bloating and rotting. Also three pigs and a cow. Always a point where you can’t help vomiting. Then you get sent out at night, have to bury them with respirator on. Boche do the same. Unspoken agreement not to notice each other.

28th. Direct to trenches. Description of our trench. Rather wide, would be waterlogged, but thank God frozen hard. After passing through danger zone halt behind fire trenches then proceed across fields. Fired at. Little cave at the end of our trench. Nine men in a space six by four with brazier in middle. My, it was fine, though all had to go on guard at night for one hour. Stevenson was Rear Admiral today, got killed carrying latrine buckets up communication trench. What a way to go. Hutch just got there in time to give him a last puff on gasper. Hutch pleased about Players in the post. Slept well. Daniel stunted and dropped bottle of whisky on a little parachute.