Wilfred Owen has arrived in Scotland, where he will be treated for the after-effects of shell shock. Feeling a bit guilty that he has had no chance at home leave, he writes a long letter to his mother describing yesterday–London, the Royal Academy Exhibition at Burlington House, the journey north–and his new surroundings.
26 June 1917
Craiglockhart War Hospital, Slateford, MidlothianMy dearest Mother,
We left Netley at 11 on Monday Morning, & I separated from Captain Robertson at King’s Cross about 3 p.m…
Then I made for Burlington House. This year’s show is nothing so good as the last; and I didn’t spend very long there. I had tea at the Shamrock Tea Rooms, perhaps the most eminently respectable exclusive and secluded in Town. There was the usual deaf old lady and her Companion holding forth upon the new curate. I happen to know that a few stories higher in the same building is an Opium Den. I have not investigated. But I know. That’s London. I met few faces I knew. But strolling down New Bond Street, I ran into the last person on earth or under the earth that I wished to meet: Major, now Colonel, Dempster, of the 2nd Battalion. We stopped, of course, and he pretended to be very affable and cordial. Yet I know a more thorough-bred Snob does not exist—even in the imagination of Thackeray. To meet him in my first hour in town. Alas! This, also, is London! . . .
I had time to get measured for new Slacks at Pope and Bradley’s.
A cheap dinner, and so to King’s Cross an hour early to get a Comer Seat.
I read some Israel Zangwill as far as the Midlands. Then wondering how few miles I was from You, slept. I woke up as we were rounding the Coast by Dunbar. I saw nothing waiting to meet me at the Waverley Station, so I went into the Hotel and breakfasted hugely. I then walked the lovely length of Princes Street. The Castle looked more than ever a Hallucination, with the morning sun behind it. Or again it had the appearance of a huge canvas scenic device such as surrounds Earls Court…
There is nothing very attractive about the place, it is a decayed Hydro, far too full of officers, some of whom I know.
I shall not see the M.O. till Tomorrow. I am going out now to lake the lie of the land…
Always your lovingest of all,
Wilfred x[1]
And with gentle irony, Olaf Stapledon–who will not receive yesterday’s ringing insistence on the strength and fullness of their epistolary relationship for several weeks–writes to Agnes Miller with only good news. Oddly, for him, it’s suddenly a war of ribbons and praise and courage well recognized…
Agnes,
Hooray! Five of our fellows have got the croix de guerre… They are corps citations, not merely divisional. The wording of the document is very fine. (Things sound so fine in French.) I must copy it out for you when I get the chance. We are all immensely pleased and proud. We only expected a general citation of the convoy. This is better in some ways, though we should like the convoy to be cited as well. All those people richly deserved their crosses. The official account is that they were rewards for work on two days of the offensive, but really they are rewards for long tireless service in the convoy. On those two days they only did what everyone else was doing, but they set the example, and always have set the example. I, being only OC’s driver and no candidate, had a wee bit to do with the settling who was to get the thing, only a wee bit. I am most pleased about Julian, who is rather sensitive about being thought a shirker from military service. It will take a weight off his mind. . . . I think it’s up to me to get a croix de guerre, or to earn one anyhow. But when the time comes one forgets about such things and thinks only of the amazing facts of war. In fact in an offensive it seems almost sacrilege to think of little metal crosses and ribbons. Anyhow perhaps we shall not have another spell. No one wants the vile job, that’s sure.[2]