It’s been a tough transition for Duff Cooper--joining a cadet training unit can sometimes be just as emotionally challenging as arriving at a new school. But then again he is a grown man, possessed of money and connections, and very sly…
July 7, 1917
This morning we had ‘Breakfast Toll Call’ at seven. I had arranged the night before to have a motor here at 12.30. I said I was going to motor straight to Tadsworth… Once in the car, however… I could not resist the temptation. My delight at finding myself in London was quite childish and I honestly felt as though I have been away for years.
He had left the day before yesterday, a century back.
I went to my flat, changed my shameful uniform for comfortable clothes, telephoned to Diana who had alas left… I felt as happy all the time as an escaped prisoner.[1]
It’s the choice of that adjective “shameful” that really gives pause. I’m sure he means to mean “ill-fitting” or, in the modern vernacular “terribly uncool–“but is it really “shameful” to be among men who can’t afford bespoke uniforms, part of a system which must assume that not every officers can immediately afford a tailor’s services?
And while we’re on the subject of adjustment issues, Edward Brittain seems to be settling in. He has lost his two best friends since he last served in combat, then he was sent to an unfamiliar battalion, and he has been writing almost daily to his sister Vera, his only sibling and now his only close friend. But relationships can grow quickly under the pressures of army life, and perhaps now he will be able to begin to find more immediate sources of support:
Billets, France, 7July 1917
I am getting on pretty well here now and like the N.C.O.’s and men of my company very much. At present I have only one officer who is very good in action but I don’t care very much for him as a personality. I wonder if you will remember 2 wounded men of the 11th Bn. whom we met at Eastbourne that afternoon you came down–Ptes. Shaw and Mantle. Mantle is now my servant–an awfully nice boy (though he did omit to wake me in time yesterday). He remembers you alright and says he would like nothing better than to get a blighty and have you to nurse him.[2]