My Dear Rose,
Haig is mounting a big offensive soon.
I’ll have to go over the top again.
I’m dreading it, really. You don’t show it to any of the other lads, of course, but everyone’s scared. Bobby was writing a letter to his wife to say good-bye if he dies.
What if I die?
If you were here, I know you’d tell me not to be stupid, but it’s possible. A shell here, a mine there, a bullet over the parapet. It’s really very easy, I suppose, to die.
Hopefully I’d get to heaven if I do. Well, there was that one time me and Jack put a thumb-tack onto Miss Smith’s chair. But hopefully I’m forgiven for that.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have written that. It’s all making me so morbid, all this dire talk about us walking straight into barbed wire and mines and -
Sorry, sorry. Oh God I can’t wait till it’s my leave. In two months, it might be, I’m not sure. But really, though, Rose, if I do die, then I need you to know I love you. If I could see you now, for a minute and not longer, I would give anything I have in the world in a second. Please tell my mother that I really am all right when you see her next, for she will not believe me if I say so myself. You know my dear mama, she thinks the world is all a conspiracy against her.
Anyway, I'm sure I'll be fine. But if I really do get shot and I don't make it back to you, which I really can't comprehend as something that can happen, you need to know this. I love you, Rosie, and I wish I could say this in front of you.
You're the only thing that keeps me going, through the mud and the rain and the blood and the endless stench of German bodies only yards away from the trenches. I'd be going mad without these letters, I really would.
Yours Forever,
James xxxxxxxxx
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«letters to the somme»
General Fictiona patchwork of letters and telegrams and shorts telling the story of a girl and a boy who are caught in the crossfire of the first world war. all through the heartache and the pain and the blood comes a gleam of hope, of peace. commemorating the ce...
