Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

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Dearest Mother and Father,

I’ve got a Blighty wound! I shall be with you in about two weeks’ time. Don’t worry as I shall be quite well by then. Please tell dear Rosie that I shall write to her soon, when I am a little stronger.

Your own loving and devoted son,

Ashbridge

Passed by no. 1900 censor

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No. 8 Clearing Hospital

British Expeditionary Force

France

15 February 1915

Dear Miss McCosh,

Your fiancé (Private Pendennis of the HAC) thought you would like to know that he was brought to this hospital today wounded. There is, we believe, no need to worry — the doctor is allowing him to be quiet and restful for a few days, and then we hope he will be able to go to the base, and thence to you! Since beginning this note, I have seen the MO again, and he repeats what he told me earlier in the evening, and so you must not worry about him too much. From time to time I will send you a line telling you of his progress, as long as he is here. You will, I know, do your part as well as you possibly can. Keep up with the faithful earnest prayer and the cheerful letters. That is all you can do. Let us keep him in God’s hands. Be quite sure that everything the staff and I can do for him we shall do. I have told his mother that we are all near neighbours — my family live at Sidcup. Do not worry — there is no need, and I will tell you exactly how he goes on day to day. He sends all that you would have him send to you. He is constantly thinking of you. Write at once, and above all, pray. I shall see him two or three times a day.

Yours sincerely,

H. V. Fairhead (Captain), Chaplain to the Forces

Passed by no. 1670 censor

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No. 8 Clearing Hospital

British Expeditionery Forces

France

18 February 1915

Dear Miss McCosh,

This is just a note to say that your fiancé is ‘going strong’, and the doctor reports well of him. Of course he is sure to have a few bad days, but he is very bright and patient. He is going to write you a line — we are trying to forbid him to write too much — and so you will see for yourself that he is by no means helpless. Keep him in God’s hands, as we do here. I will send you a line tomorrow.

H. V. Fairhead, CF

Passed by no. 1670 censor

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21 February 1915

My darling Rosie and dearest Pal,

Well, old thing, it looks as though I have bought a blue ticket home, having been here for just a couple of months!

I expect you have heard already about me getting wounded, but I thought I should write to you as soon as I possibly could to tell you that I am doing well, and I was waiting to come home for a spell. I don’t know if they will let me go back to the front or not (I suppose it depends upon how well I recover) but it looks as though I might soon be back in good old Eltham, at least pro tem. Won’t that be swell? Perhaps I’ll go into the fire brigade after all! I am disappointed that my time out here has been cut short, and that I have been here only in the most terrible weather, when it wasn’t really possible to do a good job. I was looking forward to spring, so that the Boche and I could have a good old go at each other, unimpeded by continuous rain. It galls me that I might have been put out of action without even having taken part in a proper attack.

Still, I can’t help feeling a little relief at the prospect of no more whiz-bangs, no more crumps, no more sausages of the exploding variety. I am looking forward mightily to the other kind. No more lice and Harrison’s Pomade, no more woolly bears and Austrian armour-piercers, no more poisonous niffs, no more shaving with Vaseline to save water, no more falling into disused latrines in the dark, no more hot blasts from shrapnel shells, no more filling sandbags all night, no more rats running over my face as I sleep, no more being drenched for days on end. Hooray!

I’ll miss Albert and Sidney. Leaving your brothers behind at a time like this is worrying. I won’t be here to keep an eye on them! I’ll miss my friends too. I’ve never known friendship like it. From time to time we hate each other, of course, particularly when exhausted, but there’s something rather wonderful about sitting around a brazier, playing vingt-et-un by the light of star shells, with a bunch of pals that you’d never get to meet in ordinary life. It cuts you to the heart when one of them gets killed, especially because most of the deaths aren’t by any means as clean and quick as you might think if you weren’t familiar with this kind of warfare, but you know that if the Boche get you, your pals will do everything they can to save you. They will go on even when they have not an ounce of strength left. They’ll carry you on their backs through waist-deep mud if they have to, and if you sprain your ankle there’s always a shoulder to put your arm around whilst you hop along. The comradeship is a beautiful thing. I’m sure hoping I will find it again with you, when we are facing life together, and having to be bold in the face of our difficulties. With any luck there won’t be any!

I’ll miss the star shells too. They come in red, white and green, and they illuminate everything that one has to do at night, so one knows where to put that sandbag, and the Hun also unfortunately knows where to point. The thing about star shells is that they make everbody’s faces look like the faces of ghosts. It’s odd, having that feeling, being a ghost amongst ghosts. I like it, though. I feel at home as a ghost.

What happened to earn me my blue ticket was that on Valentine’s Day, just when I was thinking of you, one of our officers thought it was a bit too damned quiet and ordered us to let rip with five rounds of rapid fire, even though we couldn’t see anyone to shoot at. We thought we’d ginger up the Hun a little, and entertain ourselves at the same time, so we popped our heads above the parapet and blazed away for a few seconds.

They got very gingered up indeed, and replied with the first direct shelling I have actually been under, and just about the heaviest one imaginable. It was quite a nasty surprise, and not a very gentlemanly response to such a small and playful salvo. It was my valentine from the Kaiser, I suppose. I got yours, and treasure it. It’s by the bedside. Did you get mine?

So here I am in hospital with a big scar across my stomach, and a ball or two of shrapnel in a glass jar on the bedside table. They look like old-fashioned musket balls, but smaller. They got twelve of us, but I don’t know how many of the others have pulled through. I am happy to tell you, my sweetest darling, that I seem to have come through relatively intact, all affected organs have been stitched up and tucked back in, and here I am, propped up on pillows, albeit painfully, and able to write you a letter about my poor self and my little woes. I keep dropping off, but if I write a bit every time I wake up, I can get quite a lot down.

I don’t know when I’ll be sufficiently well to travel back, but I sure will be so pleased to see you that I think I may well swoon with the pleasure. Shall we be married at the very first available moment? Get someone to read the banns, I’m coming home!

I’m told they’ve stopped censoring our letters, so with any luck this will soon get to you intact, as shall I.

Your best friend and best husband-to-be,

Ash

PS Long live the Pals!

Passed by no. 1900 censor