Sisters’ Quarters, University House
Edgbaston Pk. Rd, Birmingham
Nov 22nd 1916
My own dear Cyril
May came to see me this afternoon, and to my great surprise brought a letter from you – so evidently your letters were not on the SS Arabia and so I may still reckon on hearing again next week.
The dates of the Indian mails on the Arabia were given as the 16th and 24th and your letter is dated the 15th. It is distressing to hear that you still had had no letters at the time of writing. I do hope my letters will eventually turn up as one or two of them are important ones that I want you to get. They are only meant for your eyes so I hope no one else will open them. Not that there is any censorable news in them, simply a discussion on matters concerning ourselves.
Your letter contained nothing that the home folks might not see so I let May take it home for your Father to see.
It was so nice having May’s sympathy and it was so sweet of her to come on her birthday. She bought a coat, such a nice one, violet trimmed with a black fur collar. She looks awfully well in it.
I showed May some of the letters I had about Cecil and she said she would like to show them to your Father. When she returns them I will quote passages from them to you. Wilfred is very sorrowful – it is sad to read how he almost worshipped Cecil and what a blank his death will leave in his life.
Little Barbara too is so so sad. She, with the optimism of youth, has evidently hoped and believed more than any of us that the dear old boy was a prisoner of war. It is pathetic to read in her letter to Wilfred which she asked me to forward “oh - Wilfred I did love him so.”
May and I both thought of the incident of your Mother getting up and sitting by her bedroom fire and saying she so much wanted to see him. He came upstairs and they had a little chat over the fire together. We are both so glad to think they knew each other. When Cecil left I saw him off at the station and he, in his strength, took me in his arms and almost lifted me off my feet and gave me such a big brotherly hug and kiss and said “Goodbye, old girl”. He gave me a tip to give to the boy porter and when I said my brother gave me this to give to you the porter said “I thought he was Mr Cyril”. I imagine he thought this because of our demonstrative farewell!
That is the last I saw of my brother – how little I guessed that it was the last goodbye for then he was at the bomb school and we knew nothing of the big offensive which was brewing in the air.
May says your Father keeps well and cheerful. Betty has taken over the housekeeping in Ethel’s absence at Sydenham, leaving May free for her school work. May and Marjorie Slater have all sorts of schemes in the air – one being the starting of a boarding school with your cousin Marion Sladden as Head Mistress under May, to live there and May would go daily. They would take over the house attached to the Grammar School. This is under discussion only, at present and makes quite exciting food for thought.
Nov 24th
You can imagine my joy tonight just before coming on duty when I found a letter from you, directed straight here showing me that you had evidently heard that I am back in my old haunts again.
I am so thankful you are getting your mails now – but I don’t think you have received every letter of mine that I wrote up to Sept. 13th., the date of the last you mentioned having received from me but I daresay they’ll turn up in time. I think you would have referred to them in some way had you received them.
You say you will be interested to hear more of my experiences in the officers’ wards. Well – as you already know I am “on guard” as it were to ten stalwart officers of His Majesty’s Army, in the still small hours of the night. I’ll tell you their names and a little more about them.
- Bed 1 – Captain Lloyd of the South Wales Borderers. Pyorrhea and Stomatitis – a disease of the teeth and inflammation of the mouth. Not at all a pleasant case and is contagious. Supposed to have gone the face too much. However the orderly looks after him chiefly so I don’t run much risk.
- Lieutenant Andrews in Bed 2 of the Gloucesters – only came in yesterday. He has Trench fever and so has Lieutenant Bright Sherwood Foresters in Bed 3.
- In Bed 4 is Lieutenant Jessop, Intelligence Officer 9th East Yorks. Suffering from shell shock, wounds of the face, and injury to ribs through being buried. He is fairly old for a 2nd Lieutenant, 35 and married.
- In Bed 5 is Lieutenant Pearson – wounded in both legs, right leg fractured and wound of right forearm. I forget for the moment his regiment but believe it is the Royal Warwicks. He is only nineteen and has been recommended for the MC He says he doesn’t know what for! He is a very handsome boy and very unsophisticated.
- Bed 6 – Lieutenant Gloster of the Warwicks who has been here 16 weeks with deep flesh wound of thigh.
- Lieutenant Searles in Bed 7 – with wound in right shoulder.
- Lieutenant Gibson in Bed 8 of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, a charming plain spoken humorous young Scotchman. He had his operation today and is now sleeping after 1/6gr. Morphine. His is a septic wound of thigh.
- Bed 9 Is empty.
- Bed 10 – Lieutenant Jones of the Welsh Regiment, suffering from shell shock, a most uncanny fiery little Welshman.
I am having the night off tomorrow instead of the 29th, another nurse asked me to change with her. I am going to the Jarvis’!
The patients pretend to be very sad that I shall be away because they say I am “such a beautiful washer”! Sounds like a laundry hand, doesn’t it? Some of them like being washed so much that they feign they cannot possibly wash themselves, long after they are really quite able to do so.
Fancy you thinking I’m the right person in the right place! I don’t think I am – I feel far too frivolous in myself to be looking after these youngsters!
I shall possibly write a second letter this week if I can. You don’t often get two a week now! I’m afraid we are getting very prosaic in some ways! I don’t think anyone would accuse us of being prosaic if they only gave us the chance of showing them! I wonder when we shall meet – as you say – it seems years and years since we saw each other. I think I shall see more change in you than you will in me. Don’t you think so?
I think it is an awful shame you are not getting a wound gratuity. I’m sure you were more severely wounded than many who get it, but I suppose you made such a good recovery in a small space of time.
It is grand to know you know my movements once more. We seem to have been working in the dark for so long. It has been most trying. Let us hope we shall both hear regularly now. It is so much more satisfactory.
ask me in your letter not to give up hope about Cecil but ere this you know the truth, that he is gone. Had I been able to afford it I should have cabled you the news as you requested me to do so – but your movements having been so uncertain you might never have got the cable.
I think of you very very much during my night watches - and can imagine you very vividly some times. I make myself what the patients call my “dug-out” with screens and a comfy chair and I often think of you as being near me as in days of old.
God bless you Sweetheart – every hour brings us nearer the end of this war, so let us hope on, hope ever, that we shall soon be together again.
Ever your devoted
Mela
PS – All my love and just one kiss ….. or perhaps just two …..!
