To Fight Alongside Friends: The First World War Diaries of Charlie May

Bunting has come back. A bedraggled and repentant Bunting, clothed in a wonderful mixture of garments which he has conned from various friends. I had meant to be angry with him but his repentance was so deep and his condition still so sad that I had not the heart. He has now gone sick with a septic foot and is on ‘Light Duty’. I wonder he has not succumbed to a combination of diphtheria and typhoid fever. Had any one less inebriated than he fallen in the pond there is no doubt but that would have been his fate.

28th December ’15

We have been out today on a battalion attack and most enjoyable it was. Quite a change from the ordinary ruck, quite like an old day down Stonehenge way on the Plain. If routine continues like it has for the last two days we shall bear up beneath it quite well.

And tonight comes the rumour that we leave here in a day or two, but whether it be true or not I do not yet know. Nor does rumour say our destination, whether trenches or another village. The big bombardment, we have heard, has commenced. If so, it may well be that we move up to the firing line. If we do, I trust that this time we may go through. But I talk foolishly, the whole thing is only rumour and may well end as so many such have done.

29th December ’15

Usually is rumour a lying jade, but for this once she has told the truth. We do leave here, and tomorrow morning we go to Le Quesnoy[-sur-Airaines], another training billet and not to the trenches. Not yet anyway. Perhaps the next move we will. At any rate we can but live in hopes.

I have just been reading some extracts from letters found on German prisoners. They are authentic, and, from them, one can only conclude that life in Germany is not easy to sustain just now. Some of the people seem in parlous state. So much so that until one remembers the excesses committed in the first days, when Prussia’s star was in the ascendant, one can almost find it in one to pity the poor devils.

A blow has fallen on me tonight, a very heavy blow, yet one, I am glad to say, which I could, had I would, have avoided. I mean that they have asked for Garside

for a commission in one of the new units at home, and I have recommended him. He will, I feel sure, get the job, and his going will be the blow. As yet I do not know what I will do without him. He has been invaluable to me and to the company and I cannot imagine B without him. However, I suppose it must be. One has to look on these things from the larger rather than the personal standpoint. Nevertheless I feel very sad. One cannot have a good servant for long without getting a sincere attachment for him, and such an attachment I most certainly have for my keen, hard-working QMS.

He told the CO he wouldn’t take the commission if I didn’t want him to go. And, later, he said to me that he hoped he would not get the job, that he wanted to stay with me, that I was a leader of men and he would never feel the same under any other captain. Which was all rather foolish, I suppose, but which I hadn’t the heart to stop him saying. Damn it, he meant it so! Please God I may always justify half such faith. It is marvellous. I cannot understand it. As you so well know, I am such a truly ordinary sort of clout-head. Poor Garside.

30th December ’15

We have now moved as ordered to Le Quesnoy. That is scarcely worth recording now. It is not like the days when first we were out and moves meant endless thought and fret and worry. Now everyone is so used to it and so knows his job that the battalion just flits from one village to another as easily and with rather less fuss than a commercial traveller.

It was a fine day, a fact I am only too thankful to put down. For otherwise we should have had a bad time indeed, the roads – save the mark – being as it was absolutely atrocious and ankle deep in mud in many places.

This, Le Quesnoy, is a much better village than any yet which has suffered from us. We have good billets and the people are kind. I think we shall be all right here.

It was quite a send-off from Fourdrinoy this morning. Half the village was out. Papa and the three daughters from our particular billet came right outside the place to see us go and waved handkerchiefs and shouted good wishes as we trudged off. One felt like a bedraggled Lord Mayor’s Show. We must have pleased them better than the last battalion and, personally, I feel quite satisfied with Fourdrinoy. I have learnt quite a lot of French there and will remember it because of that.

Tonight I have had two letters from you, two sweet letters but so full of news and kindnesses that I despair of ever being able to answer them as I would like. My soul, you pour out your love on me, abasing yourself, in the depth of it, before me. You should not. I am so poorly furnished as an inspiration for romance that I am utterly undeserving of such a deep affection as is yours. It is I who should abase myself. It is I who am the fortunate party to our bargain. Believe me, my soul, I am fully conscious of it. And my love for you grows with the speed of the flame in stubble. How else could it be? Every day I see such evidence of your goodness, your thought for others, your bravery and your perfect womanliness that I would be but a senseless clod did my love for you not respond as I say. May our sweet Babe grow into such another woman as her mother. It is my hope that she does.

31st December ’15

New Year’s Eve. And what a strange one. The first for six we have not been out together. I feel sad and sick at heart, for I hate the anniversaries unless they be in happy company. Don Murray and I intended seeing it through together but the D messcame in about eleven and insisted on hauling us round to C Coy. We went under protest and found many merry spirits there but mostly flushed and rowdy and quite out of touch with our mood. We, I expect, grow somewhat staid or perhaps it is that we have so much more to think about, perhaps, being married, we feel we have given up so much more than the others, that life can hold for a man such thoughts, such sweet, sad memories that he had rather be alone with them. I do not know, I am so poor a theorist, but I felt out of the throng. All I desired was to be alone with the night and to dwell on my memories of other New Year Eves with you and to think out plans for future ones. And as I came home from C Coy at 12.10am. this New Year’s Day a shooting star sped right across the heavens before me. It is a good omen for our future New Years.

1st January ’16

New Year’s Day. And, I am glad to say, a day full of promise for the battalion. I may be slightly sanguine in saying that, but I care not in my present mood, for I am somewhat elated. We won today our first match in the Division League, beating the Queen’s 2–nil. I mean no injustice to our team when I say surprise added zest to our pleasure. We had thought the ‘Lambs’

almost too hot to tackle. No doubt they took us for more rotten than we are. Both were mistakes I doubt not. And, anyway we gave them a whacking.

Before the match we were inspected by Coys by the CO.

The men looked and stood very well and I think the colonel was pleased. They do good, these inspections. They cause men to buck-up and do their best to turn out well and so ensure really clean things being displayed.

In the evening we went to D Coy and talked and told tales and played ‘vingt-et un’, a feeble pastime which left me 1fr. 50c. richer at the end of an hour’s listless dealing.

We do some Brigade work next week, a thing we rather look forward to, since we are rather anxious to see how we shape in the field alongside regulars.