Pièce 48 - Letter from George to Ruth Mallory, 13 July 1916

Letter to Ruth Mallory written from France during the Battle of the Somme, 'Thursday July 13'

Full Transcript

My dearest Ruth,

Somewhat of a gap I’m afraid. I’m doing a spell in the O. P. [observation post]. I came up here on Tuesday evening – a lonely flat hill top with a wide view of bare rolling valley country intersected by the white lines of trenches and broken here and there by little woods. For companions two signallers Scotsmen. For comfort a bed of rabbit wire in a wet clay hole, a pipe, & a saucepan to brew my excellent French coffee over the Tommy’s cooker. The Hun is not much in evidence though I saw about 60 passing in small groups along a distant road – that was between 5 & 7 am. Now at 11 o’clock I have just finished registering one of our guns on a distant windmill. I enjoyed doing that; the gun did the unexpected & Lithgow was in a state of great incredulity owing to my large corrections for line – but I scored heavily by getting a hit with the last shot. The variable powered telescope which I have been using is an ingenious instrument & I had quite a good view of the windmill though its about 8,500 yards from here, & the holes in its well battered sides give me a queer mixture of pain & satisfaction.

I was rather depressed last night, a field gunner who visited this spot yesterday was telling me some unpleasant tales of what he had seen in the trenches. The pity of it all! Sometimes I have to think very hard about the Hun’s misdeeds to make up my mind to it. If the settlement of this business was in the hands of the German rank & file & our own I believe they would say at once let’s chuck it & not be such damned fools, any longer. It’s so hard to feel. I have horrid doubts too about our offensive with no particular reason. I do hope it is doing all it was expected to. Of course it’s a common place to observe that this is the great crisis of the war – but what a crisis!

What will be the fresh mental attitude of the German people when they are faced with something very unlike victory? And if they should resolve to fight to the last?

I hope I may have a letter from you today my dear one; the last reached me on Monday. In it you tell me about your visit to London. I am very glad you saw Mrs Reade. I am sure she is one of the best of women. You told her that I like the life out here & she was surprised by that. I wonder what she understood by it. It’s not a style of existence I particularly care about & I would never choose the soldier’s profession. Probably campaigning is more tolerable than the artificial peace time interest of the barracks – the hot-bed espirit de corps & diverse forms of puss blind eyewash. But No; I wouldn’t choose the life for its own sake even as I find it at its best out here. Like the life? I prefer to say that I like living; to be in a state of mind that won’t say so much is to be defeated & the most degrading condition of that defeat is boredom, it’s most usual companion ‘self pity’. No! I’m not bored & I don’t intend to be, nor have I the faintest degree of pity for myself who have so much more to be grateful for than the great dignity of men, though I believe I am capable of feeling some for the world at large – the world at war. It all comes, my dear Ruth, to what Hamlet says ‘There’s nothing good or evil in the world but thinking makes it so’ – in this sense, - that living is fashioned by Thought out of Circumstances & to fashion it well or ill is in the thinker’s choice. Far be it from me to say that it’s always easy to think life good.

The reflection that disgusts me most at this moment - & you’ll observe that it’s of universal application – is that we poor mortals are made of clay. Even so I’m sufficiently optimistic to entertain a healthy conviction that it wasn’t wet clay – my thoughts about that substance are too obscene to communicate, and so far as I recollect it was never stated that we are to return to clay. To dust – I am resigned to that thought because I shall spread so plentifully. To return to clay would indeed be a sort of immorality: but not one that I ambish – not if it were wet.

I am here for three days & this is the second. Truly I thank God that he held his beautiful hand yesterday & has wet me with only a cool shower or so this morning. A signaller sits by my side & we keep our eyes open. There are only two spots where one can hope to see the enemy in person; we watch them periodically – he more than I just now while I am so busy philosophising to you. Neither side seems active today – or I should have more to do – reporting enemy fire etc. Provided God is kind in the way I have indicated I quite like to be here for a change – its such a relief to get away from one’s companions isn’t it? I really quite half feel this but I don’t think it comes of misanthropy only that people interrupt thought so grievously.

I shall have done with this letter now. The signallers are relieved at 1.30, so I hope they’ll be in time to catch the dispatch rider before he starts at 2.0. I shall try & get a few letters or rather notes written to various neglected friends before I leave here tomorrow. This solitude suits the task. I do like to be alone.

Why do I talk about solitude when I have two companions? Because they haven’t the right of interruption – the first of the sight on man which makes the idea of liberty a Utopian dream.

Bless you dear Ruth. What’s the good of all this gas when I can’t kiss you. Please try to feel kisses & write & tell me what like it feels.
I notice that I never say that I want the time to come when …. perhaps I’m too proud; though you often speak of it. Perhaps because I almost feel that things taken for granted are communicated without speech even at this distance.

I understand from the papers that letters are not to be stopped so I’m happy to think that you’ll be receiving budgets from me.

Fare thee well beloved,

Your loving George