Item 04: G. O. Hawkins letters to his family, 2 January 1915-November 1917 - Page 202
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[Page 202]
12
The librarian of my memory is but a poor incapable desire, untrained for a systematic retention of all that which is hastly crowed in; hence I must draw from the jumbled pile, almost without selection, and regardless of the order of events. However, in this case it becomes possible, to at least complete a sketch of that which I set out to picture.
There are the waiting wounded still patiently gathered and to you in the safety of civil peace, (who perhaps in your minds eye, picture soldiers in neat uniforms with well cared-for details of equipment and arms), I must give some idea of their appearance.
Many are so covered and caked with clay that it is difficult to see any cloth of their tunics or breeches. Some are ragged and in the very tatters of war, some with no puttees. Some with sand-bagging twisted round their legs in place of puttees, many with shell-chipped and bullet-pierced hats. Several with no head covering at all. Some with their wollen balaclavers, and some with a crude turban of sacking. Many there are with sooty growths of stubble to their chins, and some with almost beards again. Scarcely one face is clean, for the slush and muddy clay of the trench has splattered them from head to foot they have had to fight in it and sleep in it for days, that clay which has become the grave of so many of their companions. They have not been able to wash in the trenches, for all the water they have had there was sufficient only of the needs of existence, brought to them at the risk of life; aye – and often at the price of death. Some there are with worn out boots but not many. The startling white of bandages catches