Letter from Charles St.John to Lady Bolingbroke August 1915

Writing from World War I Wearde Training Camp in Saltash, Cornwall on 8th August 1915, Charles St.John provides his mother, Lady Mary Bolingbroke, with a blow by blow account of a field day exercise in which he was a afraid he would be killed falling off a cliff 'like the side of a house'.

A transcript of the letter:

My dear mother

A few lines to say I received the carnations quite safely. Please thank Teddy (Teddy Hiscocks) very much for them, they are very nice & smell lovely. I hope your leg is very much better but I expect the weather makes it very painful & bad. I wish the weather would clear up a bit. On Thursday we had a field day, one lot attacked while the others defended & worst luck I was attacking. It simply rained like coming out of buckets all day. I was a scout, the first thing I did was to fall right in the middle of a brook. Of course I was all by myself. Afterwards I had to climb down a steep railway cutting, right down the side of a cliff & really thought I must be killed. When I got down so far it was steeper than I thought, it was a good 70 feet fall, it (was) like the side of a house. I threw my rifle down to the bottom as I could not carry it but it wasn't much damaged. I thought it would be smashed to pieces. I hung on for all I was worth by the very tips of my fingers to the tiny stones but at last I fell after I had got some way down but did not hurt myself much. My hands were cut where I had tried to hang as I was falling. Afterwards I had to join in the attack. We had to keep lying down flat on the grass in the rain. We were drenched through. I thought of Teddy on the Ilfracombe rocks when I was in the same position. A train passed just before I fell. Well I wish I could have stayed at Lydiard longer Thanks so much for sending my socks and things. I hope you're all well and hope to see you again soon.

Your loving Son

Charles

P.S. I will write and tell you about the dentist bill in a day or so