Letter from Edward Packe to James Packe (his brother)
Diary entry "The Light Bobs at the Front. How the Somersets Fare" |
17.XI.14 (17th November 1914)
My dear James
I am writing to you this week as I wrote twice to Pen last week.
I have written to Cousin Janie. I am most awfully sorry to hear about Freddy & yet he is out of all the worry & suspense now. Please tell Ruth how very very sorry I am. I really meant to write this letter to her instead of you, but somehow one can't write a sympathetic letter & a budget letter in one.
Do you know once or twice last week I honestly wished that the next shell would pitch bang on my head, because they were shelling our trenches & the shells were pitching right on the trenches & the suspense gets unbearable almost. But the chief reason was that we had been in the trenches for about a fortnight & all our nerves were in pieces, also the weather has been awful & the trenches are ankle deep in muck.
Having got that 'grouse' off my chest, let's be cheerful!
To start off with, I was lucky enough to be picked to go on Divisional Headquarters Guard so here we are, 30 of us, about 5 miles behind the firing line. I am Corporal of the Guard every other day and you would laugh to see me shooting "Old Guard - Present arms" etc. etc. when the relief comes, with several Generals & people looking on. Yesterday afternoon I had to march 16 men into the town (Nieppe) for a wash. It is a new idea and they used us to see how long it took. They took all our clothes away and put us in big tubs about 10ft across and 6ft high full of hot water, about 10 men to a tub. There we had to stay while they ironed our khaki, then they gave us new pants, shirts & socks. Just think of it, the first proper wash since I was in the 'Beehive' (Beatrice's house) in August. The worst of it was that we had to stay in the tubs till they had finished with our khaki and the water was none too warm.
I have just been writing a couple of letters for a chap who can't write, it was rather pathetic, he ends up his letters with 'goodnight' although it is now about 11 in the morning.
Please give my love to anybody who is kind enough to ask after me. I bet you & Ruth are keen on the spies, especially Ruth, & I hope you catch some of the devils.
Tell Beats we wouldn't mind taking on the Germans 10 to 1 provided they keep their damned shells away. There are several classes of guns. Ther are little ones that must be quite close & which give no warning of when they come. Then there are bigger guns, whose shells you can hear coming. One 'Johnson' about a week ago buried a whole section of our men (35) with one shell, they only dug four out alive and they were off their heads with the shock (probably a latrine rumour, I didn't see this happen).
I am enclosing a letter sent to the Somerset Gazette by one of our officers, describing our taking that village. By the way, if you could get hold of that paper you might hear some news of us.
Please excuse the mud on this page, it comes from the trenches and I didn't notice it till now. I was absolutely aghast to hear how much my correspondence was being flaunted before the public gaze. Old Hollins wrote to me and sent me a copy of other O.G.s who are also serving. I do hope you suppresses my name from the "Times" because nearly all our officers are back in England now, we have only got a Staff officer and a Transport Officer in our Company now. The shoulder strap came off a coat belonging to a wounded Saxon. He had discarded it & was the chap mentioned in the letter as crawling along the ditch.
I shall most certainly to no gardening whatever when I come home, I have done enough digging to earn a rest I think, and as soon as we dig the trenches the German shells come and blow them in.
The condensed milk was a good idea, however I'm not opening it now as we are living in clover on this guard.
| Written by | Lnce.Corp. Packe. |
| A. Company, 1st Somerset L.I. | |
| 11th Brigade 4th Division |
Poster Army P.O. Nov 17th 1914
Passed by Censor No.98
Signed G.A.Putenay