Brittain, Vera, Diary, 5 July 1916

00000307-5.jpg
Description: 
Diary of Vera Brittain

Tabs

Case Study: 
From Youth to Experience: Vera Brittain’s Work for Peace in Two World Wars
Creator: 
Brittain, Vera
Source: 
diary
Date: 
5 July 1916
Collection/Fonds: 
Contributer: 
McMaster University Libraries
Rights: 
Vera Brittain estate; McMaster University has a non-exclusive licence to publish this document.

Identifier: 
00000307-5
Language: 
eng
Type: 
image
Format: 
jpg
Transcript: 

a great joy to know he was here. Of course Mother came down to London (not Father, strangely enough) & she & Aunt Edith & Victor & Geoffrey (when he was in London) & Uncle Bill came to see him constantly. The thigh soon healed but the arm was very bad & caused him a lot of pain for ages, as the main nerve was badly injured. At the end of July he was given three months leave & ordered massage. He went to the Almerie [?] Massage Corps & Headquarters in Portland Place, & lived at Purley. I met him whenever I could.
The Sunday after he came wounded Mother had a letter from an officer greatly beloved by him (a certain Lieutenant Nicholls, afterwards Captain, who was left behind from the attack on July 1st to look after the remnants of the battalion but who was afterwards killed in October near Contalmaison without Edward having seen him again. It was he & Harris & Edward who used to listen at the front to Edward's record "God so loved the world.") This letter congratulated Mother on Edward's courage & splendid behaviour on July 1st, & was couched in most glowing terms. We thought nothing more of this than that it was just one friend's tribute to another for Edward pleasantly ridiculed it & would never say much about his own doings on July 1st. So much as I have told was extracted from him under great pressure. But we realised the meaning of Capt. Nicholls letter when towards the end of August Edward had a telegram from the G.O.C. his Division (the 4th) in France to say that he had been awarded the Military Cross - for the "conspicuous gallantry & leadership" he had shown on July 1st, in rallying his men