I’m afraid I have no bird for you this time, but I am working on one and will send it soonest. When I study my field book or watch the birds in the garden, I find myself wishing I were a bird. And you, Tom. And all the poor souls out there. What freedoms we would have. What joy to spread our wings and fly away, to choose our own direction, to catch the thermals and soar. What are we compared to the birds of the air? We are but worms, tunnelling blindly through the earth. We, who think we are so superior, are the greatest of fools.
I may be silly to do so, but I still imagine our Christmas in Paris and pray, with all my heart, that this Christmas will not be our last. I imagine all the many peacetime Christmases stretching out before us, waiting to be filled with mirth and merriment and carolling and good brandy. I imagine a winter’s afternoon stroll along the Seine, just for the thrill of it. They say the light in Paris is extraordinary. I imagine a little sliver of it, resting in my heart, to brighten these darkest of days.
Yours in deepest sympathy for your loss.
Evelyn
X
P.S. A few lines from Blake. Goodnight, my friend.
The sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine;
The birds are silent in their nest.
And I must seek for mine.
From Evie to her editor
6th December, 1915
Richmond, England
Dear Mr. Davies,
Please find my latest column enclosed (John Hopper has seen it, but I would greatly value your opinion as to whether it needs a bit more work). I know you asked me to steer clear of matters of death or anything too morbid, but this is war, sir, and I’m afraid the two are rather unavoidable.
I have already lost my only brother in this war, and recently a very dear friend of mine lost his father as a result of the recent zeppelin raid on London. It isn’t enough, sir, for the mothers and wives and sisters of the dead to be expected to carry their grief silently. Therefore, I find myself encouraging us to talk about those we have lost.
I am heartened by the news that you have received several letters in support of my first two columns. Dare I consider them fan mail? I would very much like to read them and wonder if you might be so kind as to forward them to me.
I find myself more certain than ever that I would like to make a career as a journalist when the war is over and things are settled once again. I hear there are female reporters at the Front—Nellie Bly for one, reporting for the New York Evening Journal from the Eastern Front. Wouldn’t it be something to have a Nellie Bly all of your own, reporting for the LDT? I never was one for knitting, and the sight of blood makes me feel faint, so I am not really cut out for nursing either. Perhaps reporting on the war is to be my most effective contribution.
I had the misfortune of reading a book recently by the writer Arnold Bennett who is of the opinion that “journalists and women-journalists . . . [are] about as far removed organically from the other as a dog from a cat.” He believes “the female journalist” to be unreliable and to have a disregard for deadlines. He goes on to accuse “the female journalist” (as if we were all one person) of inattention to detail; a slipshod approach to spelling, grammar, and punctuation; and a lack of restraint in her prose. If you ever find yourself in this Mr. Bennett’s company, I might ask you to correct him on his “opinions” before giving him a firm slap on the cheek on my behalf.
I shall send more next week (female inadequacies permitting).
Yours sincerely,
Evelyn Elliott
A WOMAN’S WAR
by our special correspondent in London, Genevieve Wren
“Notes on Loss”
Life goes on, we are told. But I am not so sure.
Yes, we wake up each morning, we wash, we dress, we talk, we go about our day, we pray, we sleep. The endless repetition of the things we must do in order to survive. But I ask you, women of Britain, is this life, or is it simply survival? It appears to me that we do not fare much better than our men over there in the trenches when it comes to living life to the full. We endure. We fight. We survive. Soldiers all.
Life does not go on when our loved ones leave us. Life departs in all ways. The life we have known, the life we have anticipated, the life we hoped for—all of it disappears in an instant when the dreaded telegram arrives. “I regret to inform you . . .” Were any words ever more painful?
We read the condolences and the brief description of our loved one’s death. We sink to our knees and our heart aches with a pain—a physical pain—the likes of which we have never known. And yet we somehow stand up again, and we remember how to breathe.
We carry on.
Life, in another form, carries on.
We are encouraged not to talk about our losses, to lock them away behind closed doors and suffer in silence. We see it everywhere—in the pale faces of our friends and neighbours, in the reluctance to look each other in the eye—but we do not talk about it, or dwell on it.
We carry on.
We must stop this silence and talk and shout and scream and cry. I encourage you to talk about your loved ones, to share happy memories, to remember those fond little moments: a joke, a nickname, a favourite toy or book. We should not consign our brave men to a silent unspoken past where, in years to come, they will be forgotten, never spoken of. They deserve far more than that. They deserve our strength and our bravery. They deserve to be remembered. We must keep their memory alive through our words and our reminiscences, both in private and in public.
Our losses in this war will be the hardest we will ever have to bear, but we can bear it together, over a cup of weak tea or sitting beside the fire, where happy memories burn bright if we can find the strength to share them.
Until next time—courage!
Genevieve Wren
From Thomas to Evie
10th December, 1915
Somewhere in France
Dear Evie,
Thank you for your kind words about my father. I still didn’t know, until now, whether or not he had decided to leave the paper to me, but I’m relieved to discover all is in order. I’m not certain the direction I’d like to take, but I wanted the choice at least. I made him so angry that I thought he may well have left the business in its entirety to John Hopper instead. I’m hesitant to explain why he has taken issue with Hopper in the past since you are good friends and colleagues, so I will just leave it at that.