Free The Book of the Poppy by Chris McNab Page A

the medical test for enlistment. I propose to go into camp in a week or two – probably Wednesday week, or Monday week – today fortnight. Meantime I shall study and drill.
    FAMOUS BRITISH FIRST WORLD WAR POETS

    If I had received your letter before, father dear, it would have made no difference. My decision has not been sudden. My mind has been practically made up for a month or so – before the recruiting boom to which you refer – but I was waiting to advise you immediately everything was fixed, and I was accepted. The reduction of the standard has enabled me to get through. [Raws had been rejected for service the previous year, having failed a health evaluation.]
    I hope that you will be proud to think that you have two sons – who were never fighting men, who abhor the sight of blood and cruelty and suffering of any kind, but who yet are game to go out bravely to a war forced upon them. There are many men, wealthy and strong, who should have gone before me, and have not. But can that excuse me? Not for one moment.
    I do not go because I am afraid that my friends may think me a coward if I stay, but I do feel in going that in my small way I am conferring upon you and dear mother what should not be a crown of sorrow. You would not have your son, whatever else, a craven – one who would say that he thought others should go, but would himself hang back. If I prove unfit for service, well and good. But it has to be proved.
    I said before that I claimed no great patriotism. No government, other than the most utterly democratic, is worth fighting for. But there are principles, and there are women, and there are standards of decency, that are worth shedding one’s blood for, surely.

    The sentiments in this letter reflect those of many men eager to join the war effort. Very few actually rejoiced in thoughts of violence and combat, but were still compelled to ‘do their bit’ for their country and community, while also avoiding the very real threat of being branded a coward. However, there is a deep shift in tone as Raws became more familiar with the realities of life on the frontline. This letter was written to a friend on 20 July 1916:

    I am no more in love with war and soldiering, however, than I was when I left Melbourne, and if any of you lucky fellows – forgive me, but you are lucky – find yourselves longing to change your humdrum existence for the heroics of battle, you will find plenty of us willing to swop jobs. How we do think of home and laugh at the pettiness of our little daily annoyances! We could not sleep, we remember, because of the creaking of the pantry door, or the noise of the tramcars, or the kids playing around and making a row. Well, we can’t sleep now because six shells are bursting around here every minute, and you can’t get much sleep between them; Guns are belching out shells, with a most thunderous clap each time; The ground is shaking with each little explosion; I am wet, and the ground on which I rest is wet; My feet are cold: in fact, I’m all cold, with my two skimp blankets; I am covered with cold, clotted sweat, and sometimes my person is foul; I am hungry; I am annoyed because of the absurdity of war; I see no chance of anything better for tomorrow, or the day after, or the year after.

    The letter here conveys a man stretched to his physical and mental breaking point. Subsequent letters frequently dwell on the theme of madness, in himself and in others, and his hatred of war builds to a fever pitch just days before he was killed, as in this letter to his brother on 12 August:

    The glories of the Great Push are great, but the horrors are greater. With all I’d heard by word of mouth, with all I had imagined in my mind, I yet never conceived that war could be so dreadful. The carnage in our little sector was as bad, or worse, than that of Verdun, and yet I never saw a body buried in ten days. And when I came on the scene the whole place, trenches and all, was spread with