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150 NOTES to pp. 88–92 ‘Come back into memory…’ Charles Lamb, ‘Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago’, in Essays of Elia (1823): ‘Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the dayspring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee – the dark pillar not yet turned – Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Logician, Metaphysician, Bard!’ Daniels Arthur Edward Daniels, killed in action 31 July 1917; praised by Blunden in ‘A Battalion History’. ‘has heard more since’ As so often with Blunden, the phrase in its context has a particular relevance: ‘I have heard more since. / As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods. /They kill us for their sport.’ – William Shakespeare, King Lear, IV, 1. Bairnsfather’s ‘Old Bill’ Captain Bruce Bairnsfather (1887–1959) was a cartoonist and humorist, whose weekly ‘Fragments from France’ cartoons were published in The Bystander magazine during the war. They featured Old Bill, a pipesmoking private in the BEF with a walrus moustache. Ashford Sgt W.A. Ashford, ‘the bright and clever signaller’ often mentioned in Undertones; killed in action April 1918. Clifford Probably Sergeant Harold Clifford, killed in action 18 September 1917. E.W. Tice Also an Old Blue; ‘with his stiff, cropped hair he looked an unmistakable German’, Blunden wrote in Undertones. Five Old Blues went exploring the streets of St Omer in 1917, ‘with such exhilarations of wit and irony that we felt no other feast like this could ever come again; nor was the feeling wrong’ (p. 148).Tice died of wounds received at St Julien, 1 August 1917. ‘None but himself can be his parallel’ Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 865: ‘quantum instar in ipso’. Mr de la Mare’s haunted forest Blunden refers to Walter de la Mare’s poem ‘The Listeners’: ‘For he suddenly smote on the door, even / Louder, and lifted his head:– / “Tell them I came, and no one answered, / That I kept my word,” he said.’ It was one of Blunden’s favourite poems (Webb, Edmund Blunden, p. 248),
page 181
NOTES to pp. 92–112 along with Shelley’s ‘The Question’ (see below). 151 a fine excess ‘I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by singularity – it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance’; John Keats to John Taylor, 27 February 1818. ‘These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep’ Psalm 107:24. A Battalion History A battalion was the basic tactical infantry unit of the First World War, consisting of just over 1,000 men at full strength, of whom 30 were officers. Three battalions were raised by Lieutenant-Colonel Claude Lowther, MP, in 1914: the 11th, 12th and 13th Battalions of the Royal Sussex Regiment, known as 1st, 2nd and 3rd Southdown battalions. These were recruited by voluntary enlistment, but their commanding officers were regular soldiers with pre-war experience. Captain Northcote Edward Stafford Northcote, 1884–1916: ‘among the killed were my old company commanders Penruddock and Northcote (after a great display of coolness and endurance in the German third line)’, Undertones, p. 74. slough of despond A deep bog in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). Trench feet Frostbite could be the result of standing in freezing cold water; it was not always treated as a crime, but could be, to make sure that soldiers tried to prevent it and did not use it as an excuse for malingering. ‘looped and ragged nakedness’ William Shakespeare, King Lear, III, 4: ‘Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are, / That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, / How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, / Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you / From seasons such as these?’ Swain Lieutenant Basil Fitzroy Swain, died in March 1918: ‘Fear he respected, and he exemplified self-conquest’ (Undertones, p. 7).

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150

NOTES to pp. 88–92

‘Come back into memory…’ Charles Lamb, ‘Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago’, in Essays of Elia (1823): ‘Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the dayspring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee – the dark pillar not yet turned – Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Logician, Metaphysician, Bard!’

Daniels Arthur Edward Daniels, killed in action 31 July 1917; praised by Blunden in ‘A Battalion History’.

‘has heard more since’ As so often with Blunden, the phrase in its context has a particular relevance: ‘I have heard more since. / As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods. /They kill us for their sport.’ – William Shakespeare, King Lear, IV, 1.

Bairnsfather’s ‘Old Bill’ Captain Bruce Bairnsfather (1887–1959) was a cartoonist and humorist, whose weekly ‘Fragments from France’ cartoons were published in The Bystander magazine during the war. They featured Old Bill, a pipesmoking private in the BEF with a walrus moustache.

Ashford Sgt W.A. Ashford, ‘the bright and clever signaller’ often mentioned in Undertones; killed in action April 1918.

Clifford Probably Sergeant Harold Clifford, killed in action 18 September 1917.

E.W. Tice Also an Old Blue; ‘with his stiff, cropped hair he looked an unmistakable German’, Blunden wrote in Undertones. Five Old Blues went exploring the streets of St Omer in 1917, ‘with such exhilarations of wit and irony that we felt no other feast like this could ever come again; nor was the feeling wrong’ (p. 148).Tice died of wounds received at St Julien, 1 August 1917.

‘None but himself can be his parallel’ Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 865: ‘quantum instar in ipso’.

Mr de la Mare’s haunted forest Blunden refers to Walter de la Mare’s poem ‘The Listeners’: ‘For he suddenly smote on the door, even / Louder, and lifted his head:– / “Tell them I came, and no one answered, / That I kept my word,” he said.’ It was one of Blunden’s favourite poems (Webb, Edmund Blunden, p. 248),

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