March 19 [1915] My dear. Tonight I write of war. Yesterday Gilbert Russell dined with me; Mr Cazalet was there too & presently there joined us a friend of Gilbert’s, one of the 4 officers of the 1 Grenadiers who escaped unwounded. He told the tale. Dick, if you could have seen him — it’s the look of him which remains with me. He’s young & fair & English. He sat bent together, his face bowed into the top of his stock[?], his forehead furrowed into deep ..... wrinkles, & in his eyes the strain, the terror of the thing he told. His brother had been killed in that engagement. It began on the 10th with a tremendous battering of our artillery, French guns among them I believe. Nothing like it had ever been known or heard. The Germans were taken absolutely unawares, battered into silence & surrender. Our men went on that day, running over the open ground & drove the enemy before them — they ran before us, they cowered into the trenches & died there or were taken. There was no resistance. There were no reserves, no support — nothing between us & the Lille trenches. The Indians went into the Bois de Biez[?], cleared it & went on — I’ll put a plan into my letter. (I’ve not got it here — it shall go in the next letter.) That night they were called back; next day they had to take the Bois de Biez[?] again, & suffered almost all their casualties retaking what they had held. They had expected nothing, the Germans. One Engineer officer was captured — my friend came down in the train with him — said he had strolled down into the trenches to see his friends & suddenly that murderous fire was upon him & he couldn’t get back. That was the 10th. That night was absolutely still, no troops moved, no artillery fired. And the Germans brought up their guns, silently, over open roads which might have been shelled all night. What was it? I expect we had run short of ammunition — was that it? Next morning the brigade in which were the 1 Grenadiers were ordered to go forward in support, at 10. The time was changed to 12. Two battalions got the changed order, two didn’t. The 1 Grenadiers didn’t; they went on at 10. Do you see the curving broken line skirting the road, to the east of it & west of Neuve Chapelle? That’s the line of trenches where they lay. To the left a tiny wood with German machine guns — they were told it was clear. As they leapt over the sandbags they were enfiladed, & the artillery opened on them, brought up by night in the silence, terrific, undreamt of. They had a thousand yards to cover, running, till they reached the first dis... trench, over open ground. They lost most of their officers in the first hundred. The stretcher bearers picked them up & carried them back to the farm dressing station behind the trenches — you see it. Two are buried there I know. They went on over deep narrow dis... trenches, crossing by flanks, carrying their machine guns but using them seldom & then propped up on sandbags — there was no time. All that day no man fired his rifle. At the 5th trench they stopped & took shelter, waist deep in water with dead Germans floating around them. (My hair’s undone — it has fallen onto the page & blotted it.) There they stayed; there was no going forward. My friend came down with swollen feet & legs, having stood so long in that deadly water. He’s well, & going to England for a day or two; then back. I wouldn’t send a man back to look upon the world with those eyes. What baffled him (he went back & back to it) was the memory of that silent night, the artillery coming up over open roads. Why? Why? “If they’d sent up the supports that night” he said “if we’d gone on then & they’d shelled the roads — Lille was open. They were all on the run.” That’s what they think. Whether they’re right or not I can’t tell — you judge. But look on the plan again — you see the second dotted line? that’s our new first line. Those few fields between the western broken line & the eastern dotted line, those are what we’ve gained, & Neuve Chapelle, & our front straightened a little — that’s cost us 20000 casualties probably. I don’t wonder they look back on that Hell & ask whether it was worth it, & might not they have bought more for that price. — I’ve written, because perhaps you’ll like to hear. But all the time I’m nothing but the piece of looking glass reflecting just one image. You’ll remember, won’t you? One of my sisters has brought twins into the world. Everyone who can should fill the world with children now. You talked of cheating life — There’s something I must ask you to forgive me. It’s weighing on me; I hate secrets, even little ones. Yet I won’t ask you yet — I don’t know how far your forgiveness runs. I’ll let it sit heavy on my soul. I don’t even know whether you’ld mind or not. Pah yes, I hate it, & if I go on writing I shall tell you. I’ll write to Philip from whom I’ve heard tonight. I haven’t written for weeks, months I think. They’ve made him a brigadier. He says the battle didn’t come up to expectations — expectations of results I mean. Oh but I’ll tell you another thing — I go on writing just not to stop & leave you. Mr Cazalet said the winds have dried the battle line extraordinarily; they’ve been bitter — I’ve shrivelled in the cold. Even the low ground down by Festubert is drying, & already it’s foetid. There are mosquitoes even in the bitter cold, & flies — What will it be like when the sun comes? There will be Black Death; we shall be struck down like the Assyrians — a pestilence withering our legions in one night. Breathe the airs of the Aegaean [sic] — don’t come back, but summon me to them, out of Black Death to life. The secret — I haven’t told it, you see. But I was very near it on the other page. Do my letters reach you ever? it’s 3 weeks since the first two went together, or was it three that went together? the new chapter of Genesis was among them. Surely it can’t be as long to L. as to Abyssinia? You must have got them. The W.O. has written to me for some Syrian maps which I think no one in England has but I. They’re not published yet. I’ve bidden them to be sent from home, considering what it means. Also I’ve told the W.O. that I’ll come over for a day if they want to see me. Please Heaven they won’t. I don’t at all want to go to London. It’s closed to me now — those days are too near. I’ld hate going back. But they won’t want me. And if they do I can always say I won’t go. That’s a way out. Yes, that’s what I would do. March 20. A confounded thing has happened — Lord Robert has written to me begging me to go back & help him in the London office. It’s been the drag upon us all the time — the work is so badly done there, & it ought to be the pivot of us all. At first I said no, no, & no; I wouldn’t whatever happened. I can’t bear the thought of London. I want to stay here & slip 70 out of people’s memory a little, until I slip out of it altogether, one way or another. And now, alas, Mr Dove & Mr Lubbock have talked me round, partly by suggesting a compromise — that I should go for a month or 6 weeks, pull the thing straight if I can, & then come back here. If I can get hold of Maud Grenfell there — she’s in the office already, but subordinate — teach her the job (she’ll be very quick to learn) & then leave it to her — that’s my hope. And then, & then, what weighs with me is that I shall be nearer Dardanelles news — the engagement of the 18th has set my heart beating - a day, at Ieast nearer to letters. And if by any chance you were to come back you must come to London; & if ever I were to come to you it must be from London — but that couldn’t be in a month or six weeks. Anyhow I’m freer there, freer to live or die as I might want. And I suppose[?] it’s in the book — I can’t not go, with all these people urging me. I‘m going to write to Lord Robert in that sense tomorrow - oh but go reluctantly: Dick say I’m right, & say you sympathise with me for hating it, understand me. Oh my dear, my dear — look I’ve talked of war & work & I haven‘t spoken of the only thing that matters - my life, my breath, my hope, my heaven. It’s not only London that I shrink from. I know what a dead leave[?] it’s going to be. I don’t want to work like that. I gaze out from the midst of my dream, see the world dimly & turn back into myself. I lean out of Paradise & watch the labour & the sorrow far below, but the sound of it does not reach me - I’m so wrapped in glory. Glory & longing & the thought of what will be, whatever way you choose to give it to me, for a day long as a lifetime, or for a life time short as a day - there’s no measuring these things in finite terms, no reckoning with love stronger than time & life & death, that moulds the solid universe like clay on the potter’s wheel, & turns the rapture of an instant into immortality. But by the reckoning of men or gods, in terms finite & terms indefinable, by the strength of mortal sorrow & immortal ecstacy, I’m yours.