spoke of it. We just continued working to shore up the tunnel on our side. I suppose even the hardened Sergeant-Major has feelings underneath, and was simply thinking what we were all thinking. A small twist of fate, a roof support or two out of place, and that could have been anyone us buried like that. Forever trapped to die alone in a dark tunnel a few CENSORED feet below ground. No hope of rescue and just waiting to die. A fear we must all hold.
We never talk of it because I think we are so resigned to it, to being here underground I mean. And we are resigned to it because we know that being a sapper unit underground is safer than being a gunner on the wall or on some patrol in the open air, or even, God forbid, concrete duty.
It's a matter of odds really. I am not a gambler or a mathematician, I don't like to think about the odds like some of the other men. There are always morbid whispered sweepstakes and supposition about who might catch the big one next. Please understand that I avoid such macabre talk, but you hear their hushed words at the breakfast table and see the money or cigarettes change hands.
When someone does die, and they haven't made a deal with someone else, there can be the most awful fights over their possessions. Which makes it seem all the more odd that we just left that German with all his possessions in the tunnel. I have seen many a bloodied nose over the matter of a pair of boots or a leather belt that isn't cracked and useless. Awful that men fight over it. The animal comes out of all of us in the end. The N.C.O.s don't seem to mind or intervene when this happens. They just collect the dog-tags and last letters the man might have written and then leave those selfish dogs to scrap it out over the possessions of the dead, before the runners come and ferry their poor body back to the light. I should not judge them. I too have possessions pilfered from the dead.
Every man has a last letter somewhere about their person. Including me, and just so you know, my dearest Esme, I have made an agreement with Jones and Hendricks that if something should befall me then they can have my few meagre possessions. And that they should post my last letter. To make this clear, those who have made such agreements keep it written down on a scrap of paper inside their tunic. Next to their last letter. I have done this too. I apologise if this seems morbid, but one must think about the practicalities of it.
Anyway, back to my description of my day rather than such morbid thoughts; after about eight or nine hours of the digging we drag our weary bodies back up the tunnels and ladders to the mess. There we ladle watery soup between our cold cracked lips; more stale bread before retiring to the 'stink pit' once again. Then, if we are lucky, we might have an hour before the oil lamps are extinguished. This is when I lie in my swaying hammock, pull up the blanket, and read your letters and look at your picture. Some evenings I might sit on an ammo crate and join in a game of cards on the dirt floor or just listen to others read their letters out loud for everyone. In this hour the men seem at their most solemn. A seriousness born of camaraderie descends and any ribbing or joshing dies away. The bitter animal parts of those who are angry in their soul is dampened for the night. We play cards or talk in hushed tones as if we are a family with children asleep in the next room. It remains unspoken but I like to think that we know, in these moments that we are simply human beings together, and we, each in our own way, cherish the company of others. A simple feeling of not being alone. Then, all too soon, it is reveille, Two-Face shouts 'lights out' down the corridors and Combes strangles his bugle once more as we extinguish the lamps. Then we lay silently in the dripping dark waiting for fitful sleep.
Some of the boys suffer from regular nightmares and their cries and sobs wake us sporadically. I count myself lucky that somehow my sleep is devoid of such terrors, apart from when their cries enter my dreams in strange ways. That moment before you wake, when reality mixes with the dream world like cream swirling in a coffee cup. Their cries bring tomcats to my dream; tomcats fighting in the alleys behind Whitefriars drive. I wonder if they still do that dear Esme? I don't suppose there are many cats around nowadays.
Mostly, in those rare times when I can remember my dreams, I dream of you. Us on the pier at Brighton. Strangely, in the dream I am no longer in uniform and we hold hands as if it is the most natural thing in the world. The sea sparkles and the pier is newly painted white; the sky bluer than possible and everyone who passes has a jolly face as if they have no cares in the world. You must think me such a romantic fool, but I simply tell you my dream as I remember it. I know we converse together in the dream but I have no idea what we say.
Other dreams are much more unsettling. I won't describe them to you but thankfully they seem rare, or, at the very least, I struggle to recall them. Perhaps my subconscious blocks them out, as if trying to protect me.
So I have described my days to you dear Esme. At the moment they are all much the same. Round and round they go, and I survive and persist. Be assured that I am safe, well as fairly safe as I could be; suspended in my pallid underground routine.
I know this will not be for too much longer; they never seem to keep a regiment in the same place for more than six months or so and we have been down here longer than that. It is definitely more than eight weeks or so since we last saw the light of day. I have no idea what the weather must be like at the summit of the Wall but I imagine it must be pretty horrendous given that it’s so cold CENSORED feet below.
You wouldn’t think that cold could seep so far into the ground. I imagine the permafrost of those unexplored arctic places at the South Pole. Miles of compacted ice and snow lying on top of buried mountains; a whole lost continent forever frozen and undiscovered so they say. This is how it feels down here sometimes, as if we are part of some long lost civilisation cut off from the world. I wonder if the Generals and officers in their fluffy eiderdown beds fifty miles away have forgotten about us. When it is quiet, when there are no shells and rockets above, I imagine the war has finished and yet we continue to dig; the forgotten soldiers left to desiccate slowly underground while the rest of humanity goes about the business of rebuilding hopes and lives and dreams.
The mind is a funny thing, sometimes I am startled to find that it is empty. I am a cog in this vast machine of war; unthinking, fulfilling my tiny function in the routine of this industry of death.
Other times my mind cannot help but fill itself with dreams and flights of fancy, as if my imagination must help me try to escape from this place. But now, my dear Esme, since we met, my thoughts and imagination have a new direction and that direction is you.
I so love the book you sent me, I keep it in my back-pack. It is with me always at the moment as I take each opportunity, even if it’s only a minute or two, to devour its delicious printed words. I am only, so far, a couple of chapters in. Another beautiful thing to occupy my mind. Perhaps once I have finished it, I will read it out loud to the others.
Oh to have been someone such as Dickens in that bygone age. Yes there was poverty and destitution and I know the Victorian age was not as rosy as we tend to make out, but some back then, like Dickens, must have had fulfilling beautiful lives. If such a thing as Well’s Time Machine could exist I would surely go back to that age. Do you like H.G. Wells Esme? Perhaps I would take you with me; you could be an upstanding Victorian Lady at my side, dressed in fine dresses and crinolines and I would be the famous writer giving readings in the Albert Hall. There I go again, my imagination running wild. Do you think me fanciful Esme? Are my ideas strange and silly to you?
It is nearly time to douse the oil lamps for another night. I will despatch this letter to you in the morning when the runner comes. As ever I hope it finds you safe and well and happy in the knowledge that you are the constant light and colour in my thoughts. Thank you for your promise to continue to write. I too make such a promise; that I will continue to write to you for as long as I am able. Is it to forward of me to feel that we are forging a bond between us Esme?
Yours Sincerely
Jimmy Fitzpatrick
X
M.O.D Approved. Home O
ffice Approved. This letter has been censored in accordance with War Office Directive 728/4c. All content of a sensitive nature has been removed by order of the Ministry of War.
Remember - CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES!
Miss E. Wilbraham
41 Whitefriars Drive
Harrow Weald
Greater London
(Defence Zone F)
HA3 5HW
Tuesday 30th January 1962
Dear Jimmy,
Thank you for your last letter. I am so glad you liked my parcel and it is wonderful that you can enjoy 'Oliver Twist' for the first time. I am surprised that you have not read it! This time I have enclosed a couple of recent copies of the Daily Mail, so that you can see what the news is saying back home, as well as a new toothbrush, as you said your old one was so worn out. I do hope you like them, and I apologise that I don't have more to send you.
You ask if we are making a bond between us; a connection. Well I would say yes, I too feel that I am beginning to know you more with each letter I read of yours. It is a truly nice feeling that trust is building and that you can share your thoughts in such depth with me.
Dulcie is still teasing me about ‘love’; she calls you my ‘Soldier sweetheart’. I