Gerald Benham’s notes from diaries

6 July 1914. Moved to 8 Hospital Road.

30 July 1915. Brian christened.

14 July 1916. The King inspected us (& other units) at Frinton.
24 July 1916 Farewell smoking concert for N.C.O.’s & a large draft.
25 July 1916 Col Bulter seen by Lord Shaftesbury & told he would not accept Major Lyle as 2nd in C & that he was to put my name forward.
30 July 1916 “ Saw draft off from Colchester Station

7 July 1917 Saw a number of German planes to their way to LONDON.

17 July 1918 On way to railhead had a nasty accident to my ribs by a door slamming
In to them. Spent night in hospital.
18 July 1918 Ordered by A.Q.M.G. Div to report to 11 Essex H.Q. Arrived at horse lines & met Maj & Q.M. Roberts.
26 July 1918 Saw Vernon Pebudy in his dug out
27 July 1918 Moved off to front line at night. Felt very bilious & much pain in ribs.

War Diary of AA Laporte Payne July 1919

EXTRACTED FROM.

Brigade Diary, Personal Diary, Operation Orders, Note Books, Memoranda
Correspondence
—————–

July 10, 1919
D/76 Bde., R.F.A.
I have just returned from Wiesbaden and a trip up the Rhine, which I much enjoyed. I went with the Adjutant. We occupy ourselves with sports, horse shows, races and dinners. I had five dinners in one week. We gave one to the officers of the Brigade the other day, and it was a great success. Tomorrow I go to Cologne for three days.

We were inspected the other day by the Army Artillery Commander.

My companion for so many months now, Captain Prior, has left us. He is a regular and has been transferred to England preparatory to going out East. I heard from Colonel Congreve the other day. He has been reduced to the rank of Major and posted to command a battery in Ireland. He does not seem to like it much.

So peace has been signed at last. It has made no difference to us here. The politicians seem to have made a good mess of it. The Boche are just the same as ever. They will not change. They say that they will never pay the indemnity, and that there will be another war in ten or fifteen years. I should not be at all surprised, for they are filled with thoughts of revenge. They will always hate the French, and the French know it. A German of intelligence, and considerable local importance to whom I spoke the other day, asked me this question. “If you had lost the war, would you have acquiesced?” I replied, “No, I suppose not.” At which he smiled and said, “Neither shall we.” Well there have always been wars on this frontier ever since the Romans had their German frontiers problems and I suppose it will go on.

July 10 and 12 1919

June Meeting
To be held on the Race Course
On July 10 & 12, 1919

First Race 14.00 hours each day.
1st Race. General Officers Inter-Corps Hurdle Race, open to teams of three officers not below the rank of Brigadier-General.

2nd Race. Maiden Plate, open to Infantry, R.E. and R.A.M.C.

3rd Rhineland Steeple-Chase. Winner 1500 marks.
Horses of the Allied Armies.

4th Robertson Plate. 2000 marks. Horses of Allied Armies ridden by officers.

etc

Second Day

2nd Race Allied Steeple-Chase. Allied Armies.
3rd The Cologne Plate. Horses of Army of the Rhine.
5th Victory Plate, Horses of Allied Armies.

July 22 1919.
Klein Vernich
The weather has been very bad here lately. We have made a tennis court, which plays quite fairly well. It has taken a lot of making, but the servants have done splendidly. It is in a meadow, and after daily rolling with a horse and roller, much levelling and cutting it is in fair order, but it now rains. However we are hoping to have some games soon.

Tomorrow is our Divisional Horse Show. Our Battery has 15 entries, a show team of six grey horses and gun, show driving, jumping, chargers, polo ponies etc. The men have worked well, and the harness and vehicles look splendid.

We have just had some races and are looking forward to some more.

I spent Peace Day as follows. I got up at 6 a.m. and then drove in a car through Euskirchen to Bonn, where I saw a large number of our men on board a pleasure steamer, which went up the Rhine. As the trip takes six hours against the stream I did not go. Instead I had a good look round Bonn, saw the University which I thought a nasty dirty place, and the students, disreputable and childish, the cathedral, and the Protestant Church. The gardens are rather good. I had breakfast at the Grand Hotel Royal, and visited the Officers’ Club, which is in a good place overlooking the Rhine.

About midday I took the train to Coblenz, had lunch and saw a good deal of the town which I did not much like. At 4 p.m. I met the boat with our fellows on board. We loaded up with cakes, cherries, gooseberries, and beer, and then we started on the return journey downstream, which only took two hours instead of six. It was well worth doing. We passed Andernach, Brohll, Sinzig, Remagen, Drachenfels. But I must say I thought that the Rhine was much finer than it is.

We arrived back in Bonn about 6.30 p.m. The men under one of the officers returned direct to the battery by lorry, arriving home after 8, p.m. Another officer and I took the train from Bonn to Cologne by the river arriving at 7.15 p.m. Then we had dinner at the Officers’ Club. We left Cologne at 9.50, p.m. and arrived at our home by train at 11 p.m. The total cost to me was Breakfast, 7 marks; lunch 9 marks; tea 5 marks; dinner 12 marks, total about ten shillings in all. I had nothing to pay for the car, railway journey or steamer trip.

I very nearly went on the Victory March in Paris. But in the end no officer went from the Brigade. the English contingent was very much cut down.

I have also visited Wiesbaden and Maintz. I must go to Trier now. I was offered a trip with the Polish troops through Germany the other day, through to Poland and home by Vienna but I could not get away.

THURSDAY JULY 24 1919

MIDLAND DIVISION
HORSE SHOW.

Romerhof Race Course, near Lechenich.

D/76 Bde put in 20 entries, won five prizes:
O.R.’s Jumping. 2nd
Pair of wheel horses in harness.
Champion L.D. Horse 2nd.
Pair Lead Horses in Harness.
W.O’s & N.C.O’s Horse under 15 hands.

E.A.L.P. Sunday August 3 1919.

The weather is awful, and is hindering our tennis and other occupations.

We are still trying to educate the men, much against their will. I take history and literature classes in the afternoons. Other classes are in mathematics, geography, dictation, agriculture and motor mechanics, taken by the subalterns and the padre.

One of our men, who went on leave on the 25th July, has been found dead in Box tunnel near Bath in mysterious circumstances. He lived at Bristol. Foul play is suspected.

I have just come back from the Cavalry Division Races. The wives of English Officers are beginning to appear now.

One wife caused amusement. She arrived with a mere captain then she was seen with a staff captain, and later with a cavalry staff major. Bets were made on the height she would attain to. Then she appeared with a full blown Brigadier, and finally, glory of glories, she was seen walking in the paddock with no less a divinity than the Commander-in-Chief himself. Hubby, poor man, was left a long way behind.

I got five prizes in the Divisional Horse Show. Tomorrow we have two horses jumping in the Rhine Army Horse Show.

The Boche are having a dance in the village today. I stopped it last week.

Tomorrow we are celebrating the 4th August. The men are having a whole holiday with cricket in the afternoon, and a concert party coming in the evening. In the officers’ mess we are having 15 guests to dinner, including 4 girls from the educational centre at Euskirchen.

We had Lena Ashwell’s Concert Party here the other day. It was the first time I had seen them.

Letter to Rev. R.M. Laporte Payne 1919 undated.

Friday eve
12B F Lines
Bulford Camp
Salisbury Plain

Dear Mr. Payne,

Thank you so much for your letter. You do speak Plainly – make me understand, & take in exactly what you mean! I have prayed to God earnestly, to give me strength to fight the temptations I experience here, & I mean to go straight in future & with the good God’s graces I know I can. Before I only knew that while temptation was out of my reach, then I only then could I go straight – but now I have turned – with your wonderful help – to my Saviour who died for me & my babies to save us from our sins.

Mr. Payne, you say in your letter that “the passionate feeling of a “supposed” love, for a married man must be absolutely put away!” Do you know how hard that is for me to do? & beside it is not a “supposed” love. One cannot make oneself love a person at a minutes notice, & I simply cannot love my husband now – never having loved him in the first place. I married him for a name for my baby girl and now I have learned to my cost that it was a very wrong thing to do. Because I love another man so very much but it’s a real love of a woman for a man & I cannot put it away easily. He has gone right out of my life because he said that if he stayed here seeing me often the inevitable was sure to happen & he loved me too much to disgrace my honour & name, the name which a man gave me to save my babies honour & mine, out of the kindness of his heart. So the man I love, as I shall never love anyone else on this earth, had gone, and I pray to God that I may never see him again although I want him very much,& I’m suffering very much. I can see now that God has punished me through that man because all the evil I had done before. But believe me Mr. Payne I never really loved until I met “him” and when I did love it was to love blindly passionately, & hopelessly. But I will love my Saviour Jesus more. I simply must love Him, for what did He do for me? “From each idol that would keep me saying “Christian love me more”!

Yes dear friend I have considered the solemnity of the promise I made in Gods house in May 1918. And now I am going to (with God’s help) keep to those words “Unto your life’s end”. For now I am trying to walk with Jesus I dare not turn back. “Remember Lot’s wife.”

You ask me if I was entirely free from blame that my husband left me. Yes – I can honestly say I was. I implored Roy to take me out with him when he went in Dec 1918. But he would not listen to me. Although I did not love him I respected him & admired him for the thing he had done for me, & I dreaded being left alone, with all those miles of sea between us. But anyway he would not take me. He went over to Melbourne to be demobbed, & then was either coming back the following summer or was sending for me & the children when I was fit to travel after John’s birth. But he never did either, & things drifted on & I had no money from him, so Dad made enquiries at A.H.Q. for his particulars etc! Well there was a lot of red tape until we heard that he was a married man when he enlisted in August 1914. So Dad wrote & taxed him with it & he admitted in a letter to me that that statement was true only that his first wife died whilst he was in France before he married me! But he did not tell me that he was a widower before we were married. Anyway they – the H.Q. – are still enquiring at Melbourne re: his war gratuity for me, so if he has still got a wife and in Adelaide I shall know through the gratuity. It takes months to find out anything in the Colonial army! We simply cannot understand why he has never, ever since he left sent me any money. He said in one or two of his letters that he did send me £30, & £20 odd but I never received either so we all believe he never did send them.

If in time we find out he is married I don’t know what I shall do. Oh my babies – I love them so very much & if he is not my husband what shall I do. I thank you so very much for helping me to find my God for now I can go to Him & ask Him to show me Light to do the right thing. I only hope that my lover never comes back into my life because oh Mr. Payne, I’m still weak in his direction & I’m afraid of myself. If Roy is not my lawful husband, I cannot marry “him” because he is already married, although not happily so. So I have a lot to pay for all the wickedness I have done, & I’m paying heavily.

Perhaps you have never loved only to loose, but if ever you have you must know what I am suffering. Please don’t think I’m whining for pity. I don’t want pity. It’s my punishment & I must bear it, but oh it’s hard! Hard! But I have made up my mind that if Roy is my lawful husband, I will keep my marriage vows & keep true to him always. But if he is not. “Shall the woman go down?” NO a thousand times no. I went down once & it ruined my life, & I forsook God & now He has called me back to him. So there’s One at least I can turn to in sorrow.

I hope I can get to Church Sunday Eve if Dad goes I cannot leave too as the baby cannot be left alone with Mother, but perhaps Dad will stay in with him. Then Mother & I can go to church.

Have you left my dear old Christ Church for good? I simply cannot imagine any other vicar there but you.

You are God’s good man to me, & oh if only I could be so utterly faithful & good to my Master as you are, how happy I would be. But I can lead a clean good life now through your kind words & the kindest words you have written were! “think what it will be, if they one day rise up & call you blessed & that you not only set before them the love of Christ but liked to make them good & make them happy”. Oh God bless you for those words dear friend. You don’t know what a comfort that letter is to me. I am utterly thankful I wrote to you in the first place & now I will ask God for his goodness & loving kindness to forgive all my past sins & let me walk in His holy ways.

Pray for me – good night – & thank you.

From yours very sincerely

I Harris.

Letter to Rev. R.M. Laporte Payne 1919 undated

Sunday Eve
12 B F Lines
Blandford Camp
Salisbury Plain

Dear Mr. Payne,

It is a week to night since first I wrote to you & I do believe I am happier than I was this time last Sunday. I have read my Bible every night this last week & have found a certain amount of peace to my tired soul from the Gospel of St John. Do you think, Mr Payne, that if I try hard & keep praying to Christ for help that he will let me come back to him? I feel so very far away when I look back over these last few years. I am thankful now that I have told you my story, it is a load off my mind, & if I can pray to God now I’ve told Him too! Although, as you say, of course He already knew what I had done, I have found a little book my aunt gave me years ago & the verse in it for tonight is as follows
“We will not come to thee,
Till thou have nailed us to some bitter cross,
And make us look on Thine; & driven at last
To call on Thee with trembling & with tears
Thou lookest down in love, upbraiding not
And promising the Kingdom
Ye shall find rest for your souls.” Jer 6; 16

I think I’ve had a bitter cross, but oh how I wish I could feel the faith in God that you can. I – who am I to come to God & ask Him to let me come back into his fold? I, who deliberately turned my head from Him & followed the Devil & all his ways – but – “Jesus calls me from the worship of the vane world’s golden store. From each idol that would keep me saying “Christian love me more.”

And Oh Mr. Payne if only I could BELIEVE!! It is soothing to my tired heart to read the beautiful words & promises in the Hymns &the Bible but as yet I can’t quite b e l i e v e I suppose, the “vane world’s golden store” has got a firm grip of me, but oh I do earnestly want to leave it all & come back to my Saviour. Do you think He really knows I want to come back? & oh Mr. Payne will He forgive me & say “Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more?”

Will you please send me the words of the dear old hymn in the Christ Church hymn book (I have only an ancient and modern book) the hymn starts with “Knocking, knocking who is there” I used to know it all through, & I remember that it was my favourite hymn in that book, so I should love to know it again. My “door” is very hard to open but oh, If I keep pulling at the rusted bolts & drag the ivy vine away, will my Saviour enter at last to leave me nevermore? There are my babies, two innocent little lambs of Jesus – but oh when I come to think of it how very near to children of the devil they would have become if I kept on in the devil’s ways teaching them & helping them to do likewise. My friend Minnie Green, said it was God who was speaking to my heart, that made me write to you last Sunday on impulse. It may have been, but if I did not go to church that day I should never have written to you. Pray for me, please, dear friend, I think you will not be too hard on me now you know my secret, & yet I only deserve you to hate me, but please help me to find Jesus again.
As now I can only see Him very very faintly but still it is a ray of hope for better light to come, & you my dear friend whom I learnt to love & respect in my childhood days, you can if anyone can help me back to Him, for I’m oh so very very tired of the world & all its sins, & sorrow & lust & greed & everything wicked I was up to my neck in, but I want to go straight from now, straight up to God & learn to walk in His ways & let my two little lambs have a mother they can look up to & respect. For I hope & pray Joan will never know the awful truth about her birth, poor little soul if only I’d have thought of that before it was too late.

Good night dear friend

I do want your advice & help

Yours very sincerely

Irene Harris

The enclosed verses are what are helping me to come back, & are pulling, tugging at the door of my heart. Please keep them.

Letter to Rev. R.M. Laporte Payne 1919 undated

12B F Lines
Bulford Camp
Salisbury Plain.
Friday eve

My dear Mr Payne,

Very many thanks for your letter. If only I had known you had been ill I should not have troubled you with my affairs – I do hope you will quite recover. I expect it very nearly broke your heart to leave Christ Church & all the people you knew & loved there. It was the most beloved church of my life, & wherever I go I shall never never forget that church. I’m glad I knew no other vicar there but you. You have been the means of saving me from myself through your most kind letters & encouragement. I’m sure again & again I should have yielded to temptation if it had not been for your letters & when I’m tempted I read them & then pray to God to “Lead me not into Temptation, but to deliver me from evil”, but Mr. Payne, I’m by no means good as yet. But Oh I simply will not go back to the old bitter-sweet life of sin. I simply dare not. “Remember Lot’s wife.” I do pray earnestly to Jesus to make me a good woman but as yet I cannot hear him answer me and sometimes – in fact most times – it seems perfectly hopeless to keep on praying because it seems that He did not hear what I said to Him. I suppose it is that I haven’t the absolute faith in him that you & Minnie Green have. But I do try & make myself believe. If only I could hear Him speak to me I could easily say as Thomas did “Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief”. Minnie is a real help to me. She is the only lady friend I can call friend.

“Thou shalt have none other God me” I keep saying that over & over again for I’m very much tempted to disobey that commandment. He is an earthly god to me with the face of an Apollo & I just worship him but as you said in your letter “it must be absolutely put away.” And that Mr. Payne is my hardest fight.

Oh if only you knew what agony of mind I’m in perhaps you could understand. It seems to me so very very hard to love the unknown, invisible more than the well known & visible, but oh I must fight it, I must! If only God would send me some power with which to do it with? Please keep praying for me dear friend, God will hear you.

Minnie lent me a copy of the “Memorials of Francis Ridlay Havegal”. She was a very good woman, & learnt to love her Saviour better than anyone else, but I do not think she ever really loved man, she did not have “another god before Him”. I am praying most earnestly for faith. It’s absolute faith in Him that I want & must have. I know that now. Whereas beforehand I didn’t know what it was I wanted so in some very vague way God is working in my heart, but I’m seeing as it were through a dense foggy mist everything before is vastly blurred. It is exceedingly hard to tell you what I feel in writing, I should dearly love to have a serious talk with you, but as yet that’s perfectly out of the question.

Mother has been ill again. To day she had a fit, & I only just caught her before she smashed six dinner plates with her face. She fell forward on the table with the pile of plates in her hand. My children are bonnie. Little Joan is with my father’s people my Aunt’s at Bognor. She is staying with them until Roy comes for me, because it’s to much for me to do with both of them & mother to look after. She is perfectly happy with Thora my sister who is also at Bognor. She was quite a baby at Finchley but now she is 9 years old, & every one thinks that Joan is her sister. Besides there is no room in these beastly army huts here & no place for such a dainty little maid as Joan is. But oh how I long for her dear lamb.

John is always with me, he doesn’t notice yet being under 2 & he is a terror a perfect “boy”. Well I must close now, good night dear friend & thank you

Yours very
Sincerely
Irene Harris

Saturday morning

I have just had a letter from Miss Payne. Such a sweet encouraging letter. She asks me whether I should like to confide everything to her, but oh Mr. Payne I’m afraid of what she will think of me. Will you please tell her I simply cannot. It was a hard struggle to confess to you.