Complete works of wilfre.., p.61
Complete Works of Wilfred Owen, page 61
Near the Cathedral I picked up a delightful wee lace-surplice, my only souvenir so far.
Potts, that is my comrade — in billets — , chose a Toby Jug, — in very bad taste.
Potts is a science student at Manchester; only 20; book learned in certain ‘Subjects’, but not without ideas. Indeed we talked 3 good hours last night.
It is a pleasure to find someone worth disagreeing with, nowadays, and here-a-placed.
I think we are fond of each other, moreover, & will do each other much good.
The Australian Y.M. is a shack of a cottage, near a little place where I once had tea last year, & which Sassoon also knew.
It was strange to wander again by the Canal where the ‘Hospital Barge’ passed....
I had a strong poetical experience in a wrecked garden this afternoon, not an ordinary garden, but full of conservatories of tropical plants, aviaries, fish-ponds, palms & so on. I can’t make a poem of it, because of Shelley’s ‘Sensitive Plant’ which you might turn up if you want the effect I enjoyed. I say enjoyed...
Here is a list for next parcel which you might send as soon as convenient after receiving this:
1 Pears Soap.
1 Euthymol Toothpaste.
1 — Refill Battery.
2 — Boxes Non Safety Matches.
1 — pair Madoxes 2/6 socks.
The gloves.
20 Players Navy Cut or more if possible.
Horlicks Tablets.
No Chocolate, unless room is left.
? Handkerchiefs.
Goodnight; and may your peace be as divine as mine is tonight.
Your son, your son, your son...
To Susan Owen
Friday, 13 September (1918) — Y.M.C.A., With The Australian Imperial Force
Dear, dear Mother,
News today that the Batt. is coming down here, instead of my going Hence. Excellent. I have been billeting troops today. Write to the 2nd.
Man., not this Recep. Camp as I’ll be joining about Sunday.
It is funny to think of your letters being brought down from the Front!
Do not, (as I afore-asked) undeceive the world which thinks I’m having a bad time, if it thinks at all. But take to yourself the fact that I’ve an amusing little holiday here; and know that nowhere in the universe, and at no time, can I experience anything again like — and — in 19I7. —
Ever your W.E.O. x
To Susan Owen
Sunday, 15 September 1918 With the 2nd. Batt., The Manchester Regt.
My dear dear Mother,
I reported to the Adjutant at 9 this morning, & am now in D Coy. — which is part of my address. Your letter of Sept. 10 (unnumbered) (with the photograph), was on the table at lunch. After lunch, I went round to B.H.Q. for the rest, but found none, & could get nothing out of the post-corporal.
I hung about interrogating people till the Terrible Major, (he of the 10 wounds fame) asked me if he could help me! I departed. Mysteriously, at dinner, eight more letters were brought to me, including only one of yours, The No. 3. None from S.S. It is possible that his correspondence is specially censored — and intercepted.
All thanks for the parcels — in anxious anticipation!
Cigarettes are scarcer and scarcer. Verb. Sap. The poor Boys were smoking grass in envelopes in the line last week. I wish I could tell you what they have done in the making of last month’s News.
Y — esterday I had the honour (!) of preparing the Brigadier’s Quarters:
& supervising Guides for various units of the Brigade. I watched The Manchesters ‘march in’ and great cheer it was to see at least two lads instantly recognize me as they went by. They were, strangely enough, the very two I most hoped had survived. Almost they are the only survivors in the ranks....
Many of the N.C.O.’s I remember.
I like my Coy. Commander: & the other four Coy. Officers are anything but blighters. Three, I believe are junior to me.
But Potts has been put in another Coy.
We billet together, nevertheless.
Of our billets (in a village close adjacent to where I was last week) I will write more next time — tomorrow, I hope.
By the writing you may judge I am not yet very comfortable.
W.E.O. xx
To Susan Owen
Saturday (21 September 1918) — (2nd Manchester Regt.)
Just a tiny note as a sign of life, & to say that both your Parcels have reached me, one yesterday and one today! Tomorrow — Sunday — I will thank you in detail.
All news is told when I say I am still in the same billet, & no doubt shall be for long after you get this letter.
I have been appointed Bombing Officer to the Battalion. N.B. I know nothing specially about bombs. I told the Adjutant so, & he said something about making me Gas Officer; or ‘some Battalion job’. I am flattered.
The Adjutant is a fine pleasant man.
My Captain is an Honours Student of Eng. Literature. Need I say more? (Yes, I need: he is not a producer).
The Colonel is an agreeable non-ferocious gentleman. But the Major of the 12 wounds loves Soldiering & has passed his life wherever he could find any fighting. Need I say more?
Your W.E.O. x
To Siegfried Sassoon
22 September 1918 — D Coy. 2nd Manchester Regt.
My dear Siegfried,
Here are a few poems to tempt you to a letter. I begin to think your correspondence must be intercepted somewhere. So I will state merely I have had no letter from you lately for a long time, and say nothing of my situation, tactical or personal.
You said it would be a good thing for my poetry if I went back.
That is my consolation for feeling a fool. This is what shells scream at me every time: Haven’t you got the wits to keep out of this?
Did you see w hat the Minister of Labour said in the Mail the other day?
‘The first instincts of the men after the cessation of hostilities will be to return home.’ And again —
‘All classes acknowledge their indebtedness to the soldiers & sailors...’
About the same day, Clemenceau is reported by the Times as saying:
‘All are worthy... yet we should be untrue to ourselves if we forgot that the greatest glory will be to the splendid poilus, who, etc.’
I began a Postcript to these Confessions, but hope you will already have lashed yourself, (lashed yourself!) into something...
O — Siegfried, make them Stop!
W.E.O.
P.S. My Mother’s address is Mahim Monkmoor Rd. Shrewsbury.
I know you would try to see her, if — I failed to see her again.
To Susan Owen
Sat. 28 September 1918 — Same Address
Dearest Mother,
Am still sitting on straw under our Tamboo, for it is raining again.
These few days have been dry & not really cold. You must not suppose I have been uncomfortable. Though I left the last vestige of civilization, in the Civil sense, behind at —— , there is here all but all that a man wants fundamentally; clean air, enough water to wash once a day; plain food and plentiful; letters from Home of good news, shelter from the rain & cold; an intellectual gentleman for Captain; 3 bright & merry boys for my corporals; & stout grizzled old soldiers in my platoon. My Sergeant is a tiny man. We get on very well together.
Major Marshall of the 10 wounds is the most arrant utterly soldierly soldier I ever came across. I have not ‘come across’ his path yet, & hope not to. Bold, robust, dashing, unscrupulous, cruel, jovial, immoral, vast-chested, handsome-headed, of free, coarse speech, I am not surprised he figures in a book. I don’t know which book; must find out.
The Colonel is a mild, honourable gentleman, who lets us alone to do our work.
Two at least of the officers in D. Coy. are quite temporary gentlemen. They call me The Ghost, (which is a point in favour of their latent imaginations.)
So delighted with all your news of Harold. Didn’t I tell you it was ‘A Good Thing.’ You don’t say where Colin is, after having left Hastings.
As I hope I said, I had his letter, but at present I’m borrowing note paper, of which a quire is not to be found in the Company.
The forthcoming news should be of intense interest to you.
Here is my lunch; roast beef & baked potatoes! I’m hungry!
Ever your W.E.O. x
To Susan Owen
4th (or 5th) October 1918 — In the Field
Strictly private
My darling Mother,
As you must have known both by my silence and from the newspapers which mention this Division — and perhaps by other means & senses — I have been in action for some days.
I can find no word to qualify my experiences except the word SHEER. (Curiously enough I find the papers talk about sheer fighting!)
It passed the limits of my Abhorrence. I lost all my earthly faculties, and fought like an angel.
If I started into detail of our engagement I should disturb the censor and my own Rest.
You will guess what has happened when I say I am now Commanding the Company, and in the line had a boy lance-corporal as my Sergeant-Major.
With this corporal who stuck to me and shadowed me like your prayers captured a German Machine Gun and scores of prisoners.
I’ll tell you exactly how another time. I only shot one man with my revolver (at about 30 yards!); The rest I took with a smile. The same thing happened with other parties all along the line we entered.
I have been recommended for the Military Cross; and have recommended every single N.C.O. who was with me!
My nerves are in perfect order.
I came out in order to help these boys — directly by leading them as well as an officer can; indirectly, by watching their sufferings that I may speak of them as well as a pleader can. I have done the first.
Of whose blood lies yet crimson on my shoulder where his head was — and where so lately yours was — I must not now write.
It is all over for a long time. We are marching steadily back.
Moreover The War is nearing an end.
Still,
Wilfred and more than Wilfred
To Susan Owen
(8 October 1918) — (2nd Manchester Regt.)
It is 5 o’clock this Sunday Evening. You will be sitting at tea. I fear you are without news, and a little wondering...
Y — ou will understand I could not write — when you think of us for days all but surrounded by the enemy. All one day (after the battle) we could not move from a small trench, though hour by hour the wounded were groaning just outside. Three stretcher-bearers who got up were hit, one after one. I had to order no one to show himself after that, but remembering my own duty, and remembering also my forefathers the agile Welshmen of the Mountains I scrambled out myself & felt an exhilaration in baffling the Machine Guns by quick bounds from cover to cover. After the shells we had been through, and the gas, bullets were like the gentle rain from heaven.
My servant was wounded in the first hour of the attack. My new servant has just gone on leave this afternoon, carrying with him some books & binoculars of mine, with instructions to call on you as he passes through Shrewsbury (to Manchester.) This Howarth is a ‘scratch’ servant not my choice; but I rather hope he’ll call on you & tell you what he can.
So strange to read your letters again! And so good to hear you are at least trying to keep quite well. Glad you find your Help worth accommodating.
Must now write to hosts of parents of Missing, etc.
Your W.E.O. x
To Siegfried Sassoon
10 — October 1918 — (2nd Manchester Regt.)
Very dear Siegfried,
Your letter reached me at the exact moment it was most needed — when we had come far enough out of the line to feel the misery of billets; and I had been seized with writer’s cramp after malting out my casualty reports. (I’m O.C. D Coy).
The Batt. had a sheer time last week. I can find no better epithet: because I cannot say I suffered anything; having let my brain grow dull:
That is to say my nerves are in perfect order.
It is a strange truth: that your Counter-Attack frightened me much more than the real one: though the boy by my side, shot through the head, lay on top of me, soaking my shoulder, for half an hour.
Catalogue? Photograph? Can you photograph the crimson-hot iron as it cools from the smelting? That is what Jones’s blood looked like, and felt like. My senses are charred.
I shall feel again as soon as I dare, but now I must not. I don’t take the cigarette out of my mouth when I write Deceased over their letters.
But one day I will write Deceased over many books.
I’m glad I’ve been recommended for M.C., & hope I get it, for the confidence it may give me at home. Full of confidence after having taken a few machine guns (with the help of one seraphic lance corporal,) I held a most glorious brief peace talk in a pill box. You would have been ‘en pamoisons’.
I found one of your poems in another L. Cpl’s possession! The Theosophist one it was: containing, let me tell you, the one line I resent.
In bitter safety I awake unfriended.
Please apologise — now.
Yes, there is something you can send me: 2 copies of C. Attack, one inscribed. One is for the Adjutant, — who begged a book of Erskine MacD’s Soldier-Poets which I had with me — because I met one of these amalgamations at the Base. And liked him for his immediate subjugation to my principles and your mastery.
But he is now sending me V.A.D. love poems, so he will remain a private in my section of poets.
Was so interested about Prewett.
At the Base I met O’Riordan (of the Irish Theatre, & collaborator with Conrad.) A troll of a man; not unlike Robbie for unexpected shocks. It was easy, & as I reflect, inevitable to tell him everything about oneself.
I have nothing to tell you except that I’m rather glad my servant was happily wounded: & so away from me. He had lived in London, a Londoner.
While you are apparently given over to wrens, I have found brave companionship in a poppy, behind whose stalk I took cover from five machine-guns and several howitzers.
I — desire no more exposed flanks of any sort for a long time.
Of many who promised to send me literary magazines no one has succeeded, except the Ed. of Today who sent me (by whose request?)
Mais’s article & the picture, which I have at last managed to stick to the corrugated iron wall of my Tamboo. For mercy’s sake send me something to read which may help to neutralize my present stock of literature. I send you the choicest of specimens.
Ever your W.E.O.
To Susan Owen
10 October 1918 — (2nd Manchester Regt.)
My own Mother,
I think all your dear letters have now reached me. By Oct. 3, your last, we had got out of the danger zone.
At five in the mng. I led the Company out, by the stars, through an air mysterious with faint gas. Such was our state that when dawn broke some of us were surprised, and for half an hour I had myself thought it was five in the evening! Since then I have been pretty busy with the Company, still in my charge, with 2 junior officers. At three this morning, a big number of lads from Scarborough turned up, several of them outgrown drummers, once my waiters in Clarence Gdns!
Nearly all have come to my Company, & from my company in Scarborough. Luck again! I’m in the horrible position of not having enough food for them, as they left their rations some ten miles away!
Some of them look pretty scared already, poor victims. Tonight I must stand before them & promulgate this General Order:
‘Peace talk in any form is to cease in Fourth Army. All ranks are warned against the disturbing influence of dangerous peace talk.’ And so on.
It is amusing to think of anyone being upset by a friend’s arm amputation in hospital...
How would Father like — No, I will spare you.
Father would like to see me on my Charger; or sitting at my Orderly Room Table, where I can inflict Field Punishment! In a few days a senior officer will no doubt turn up from Leave or somewhere.
Am looking out with hungry eyes for your parcel. None of my rich relations consider 20 cigarettes worth my life. They’ll have a murderer’s curse; if I should curse them. Meanwhile you have a martyr’s blessing. — W.E.O.
To Susan Owen
11 — October 1918 — (2nd Manchester Regt.)
Not for circulation as a whole.
Dearest of Mothers,
No letter from you today, and no parcel. The great concerns which take my time have prevented me from properly thanking you for the many little blessings of your last parcel. The Munchie I ate over a period of several days & nights; and the fact that it was once eaten under a particularly nasty & accurate bombardment — (shells so close that they thoroughly put the wind up a Life Guardsman in the trench with me — so that he shook as the Guards shake on parade) these circumstances, I say, have not taken the good savour from Munchie-munchie.
The New Food served me one night when we lay drenched to the bone, and the awful Cold had begun to paralyse my stomach. I don’t like this Food.
On that night both officers & men lay in the mud utterly despondent; but a lance-corporal spread half his blanket (not supposed to be carried) over me, and the warmth came like the rising of the May-day sun. So I was saved from the nearest approach to the excruciation of my First Campaign. That time on the Somme in 1917 was so infinitely worse than this for cold, privation, and fatigue that nothing daunts me now.
The Sergeant, now acting my Coy. Sgt. Major, was a corporal with me in the first dug-out where the Sentry was blinded, you remember.
