We have been following–at least a little–the superstitiously strained epistolary connection between Vera and Edward Brittain, now so close in distance but so far from confident about their chances of ever seeing each other again. A century back, she will not know that he is safe–that he has been safe up until the point of writing–until she gets this letter.
France, 2 October 1917
A line to tell you that I am alright. We were suddenly called upon to go up again and take over our former sector for another 4 days much to our disgust, but fortunately most of us are back again and for the moment well behind the line in the same place as we were at the end of July and beginning of August. I am expecting leave any day but I’m afraid I shall not be able to see you on the way as we now go by C. I haven’t heard from you since I wrote last but I expect you are very busy owing to this continual pushing… Some time I will tell you all about what we have done in the 2nd half of September during which we only had 3 1/2 days out of the line, which is heavy work for the salient
when straffing.[1]
Ivor Gurney is thrilled to be in Blighty–safe, able to rest, clean–but as he is also, as he wrote in excitable fashion to Marion Scott yesterday, oppressed by the hospital atmosphere:
Allons, I am nothing but grumbles because staying in bed makes me unfit in no time — a bundle of oppressed nerves; and those ruddy drawing room ballads set me afire.
In a letter to Herbert Howells of today, a century back, he enlarges upon this theme:
…I am in the devil of a temper. I am not quite sure whether the gas has not slightly aggravated my ordinary thickheadedness and indigestion. If this is so, then there’s hope for the Wangler: if not, then no hope; I should be merely a Lucky Blighter soon to be cast out into outer darkness again.
Anyway, I am that spoilt pet of Society, an accompanist that can read at sight. But O! what that same Pet has to endure! The rapturous soulfulness that disdains tempo. The durchganging baritone that will not be stayed long by interludes of piano, whose eager spirit is bars too early for the fray. The violinist that will play songs—not only the voice part but any choice twiddly bits that a careless writers has left to the piano. The universal clamourous desire for ragtime.
There is something funny, certainly, about the skilled musician and composer being implored to hammer out popular tunes for the benefit of the hospital–and something very sad and worrisome about the way in which his psychological state is disregarded while his allegedly not-much-worse-than-a-cold symptoms of being gassed are attended to.
Gurney next discusses Edinburgh.
Enbro is indeed a magic name. Its glamour is increased (as usual) by distance and denial. 16 miles and regulations of the most strict. I wonder which was Henley’s hospital? There are many memories round this city, but the dearest to me are those of R L S, that friend of Everyman. Henley and the Great Sir Walter…[2]
Alas, again, that it is gas inhalation that has brought him to the outskirts of Edinburgh, and not the underlying and exacerbated psychological problems that plague him–he might have been in more salubrious company. But I forget: Gurney is an enlisted man, and no gentleman, however temporary. He would under no circumstances end up at Craiglockhart, or in Siegfried Sassoon‘s good graces…
Speaking of those graces and their salubrious and salutary effects, here is Wilfred Owen:
Tues. Aft.
2 October 1917I have rescued these sheets from under a few feet of later accumulations. I have been quite well all week save for a cold. Nothing has been announced about my Board. Clearly I have another 3 weeks yet—before leaving—or having another board. Have been to School again. Am going to do Hiawatha with them now.
Then follows an ugly bit of casual racism about a Japanese envoy encountered on a visit to the fleet. Then this:
I have before me a letter, (as the novelists say,) from Lady Margaret Sackville to Sassoon, shyly presenting him with her war poems—some of them very fine. She is the great Patroness of Literature, and I am going to ask her for something for the Magazine…
Next comes a combat officer’s perspective on literary pacifism–and if it is mild and middling (as we might expect), it is very much a combat officer’s perspective–an undecorated combat officer.
I have never been much convinced that there was any serious accusation of cowardice hanging over Owen regarding his performance in the line this winter–but it is still clear that he feels he could have done better, and must do better when he returns to action. It will take generations before there is widespread understanding that to experience psychological symptoms after prolonged combat does not indicate any weakness of character. Nevertheless, hanging about with “Mad Jack” Sassoon and his MC (the ribbon may have floated down the Mersey to the sea, but the aura remains) may be having an effect on Owen’s sense of self in more than merely poetic ways:
Read Wells’ article in today’s Mail. Most important. I enclose it. As for myself, I hate washy pacifists as temperamentally as I hate whiskied prussianists. Therefore I feel that I must first get some reputation of gallantry before I could successfully and usefully declare my principles.[3]
In the article in question Wells does not argue for present pacifism but rather for a postwar solution that will prevent the re-emergence of militarism: ‘I have always insisted that this war must end not simply in the defeat but in the disappearance of militant imperialism from the world . . .”
We don’t need to indulge heavily in historical irony here. A famous writer advocates something like a League of Nations to prevent militaristic “bloodbaths,” and a gentle poet–already committed to the position that any true Christian ethic requires resistance to militarism–decides that he must be recognized for excellence in violence before he publicly espouses pacifism…