‘They pulled him through’: A soldier’s WWI love letters unearthed

As New Zealanders prepare to commemorate Anzac Day, unearthed love letters from a soldier to his future wife show how they got him through World War I.

When Lieutenant Lindsay Inglis left Wellington for Egypt on the HMNZT Tahiti in 1915, his future wife was among the spectators farewelling the ship.

He was one of 120,000 Kiwis who defended their country in World War I.

Inglis, who had been training to be a lawyer at the time, was separated from May Todd for years while he fought with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.

But her letters got him through, as discovered by the editor of his memoirs, Dr Nathalie Philippe, a historian and senior lecturer in French at the University of Waikato.

“Death Among Good Men is much more than a war story. It is also a love story. Inglis’ letters to his future wife May are heartfelt and tender. They show how this contact with someone he loves keeps him sane, but that love also extends to his friends and the men he commands.

“They represented the link to his old life in Otago and to his future hopes. His letters served as a cathartic medium, part-confession, part-relief to tell her what he was going through.

“Unfortunately, Inglis regularly had to burn May’s letters for reasons of space, and none of her side of the correspondence has survived except for a telegram.”

Here are a selection of Inglis’ letters of hope.

19 October 1915

Bound for Egypt, aboard HMNZT Tahiti

My Dearest,

Even if it is a very small hour of the day it is nonetheless the 19th of October, and that is a day that cannot afford to pass without being written on. I am officer of the watch tonight and will squeeze in a tiny screed to you, sweetheart, between visits to the sentries.

This is the third letter to you, old chap, so one at least ought to reach you safely out of them all. Until 11 o’clock last night I was on censoring, but I didn’t come across the long letter I posted on Sunday evening although I struck the one for the family that I posted at the same time - I censored that myself; but I had much rather it had been your letter that came my way. It’s rather an experience to see the different sorts of letters the men send, though it is not a job I care for ‘cos there are letters, as you know that one doesn’t care about prowling into. Some write long letters, but they are decidedly in the minority. Many are faintly scrawled on tiny scraps of dog-eared dirty paper, and I’m quite sure will never be legible by the time they reach their destination. This ink pencil is bad enough but if you ever strike it very faint, hold it in the steam from a kettle or something like that and it should take heart and brighten up. I have lost my fountain pen, so when I’m away from ink I have to resort to this. If we get ashore at the next port though, I shall get another ‘cos it’s too valuable a thing to be without.

It’s great the things this day brings when it comes round. The one thing above all others that makes me want to see this business through without getting knocked out is to be able to come back at the finish and put an end to my brave little maid’s waiting.

I hope this will be a happy year for you till the next 19th of October, and forever so many nineteenths of October after that. I haven’t taken any of the edges off the photo you gave me, dear, but later on when I want to put it in the tiny waterproof case, I shall have to cut it down just a little.

I’m afraid, sweetheart, that the actual history of the trip will make rather dull reading, ‘cos at sea one day is usually much like another and the variety of jobs is small. We are having physical drill every morning just now, but I don’t know if we will be able to continue it in the tropics - I rather think not.

Now, love, I’ll have to close. If all the letters I have written turn up safely you will have quite a budget. I may be able to write yet another; but I don’t know when the mail bags will be sealed up. We are still at sea and no sight of land.

Always and “after” too I am yours alone - your own property.

Your Lindsay

November 7, 1915

Aboard HMNZT Tahiti

My Dearest,

I am keeping notes for you as things happen, and I think the best thing to do is just to collect them now and again into something like a letter.

Well, on Wednesday we sighted Point de Galle and coasted up the west of Ceylon [Sri Lanka] all afternoon till we stopped outside Colombo breakwater about half past eight at night to burn a flare for the pilot.

[There] was a new ‘something’ in the air... the “odour of the East”, which one noticed rather muchly at first but afterwards forgot about - that is till one got into the neighbourhood of the native shops. The water near us was soon alive with lights moving towards us low down, the lights of the native boatmen coming out to see what was doing.

Thursday was hot - steaming hot. We spent the morning on the boat watching things going on round about us - mostly the coaling. The coolies were Tamils from the mainland of India and their dress was various. Their head-gear ranged from coloured rags to ordinary cloth caps. Round their legs they wear a single piece of cotton cloth wrapped round like a petticoat, reaching to their feet, and held by a belt at the waist. When they’re working they have it hitched up above the knee and wear their skins above the waist - when they’re not working they generally have a singlet, though I did see one looking very proud of an extremely shabby green-striped sac coat! At midday a tea boat came round and they bought from it mugs of tea and what appeared to be betel nut wrapped in small green leaves - they all chew betel nut continually, but I saw one doing likewise to a cigar that was thrown to him. After the tea boat came another with a great big basket full of boiled rice and a big iron pot full of some mottled red and green slosh.

The mixture in the pot was apparently curried fish. In the intervals of working they would squat on the edge of the barges and try to get the men to throw money for them to dive after. They had a very small stock of English - mostly catch words and swearing. In the afternoon, we went ashore in three parties for a route march [which] took us round most of the town, ending up at the barracks where the men were dismissed for about an hour and a half to sample the canteen beer at 3d a glass.

The march was very interesting, especially to those of us who had seen nothing of the East before. The bright strong, vivid colours are quite different from what we see. The roads in some places were actually made of a fine pink gravel that bound down hard and smooth into pink roads! The greens of the palms and all the trees were more vivid that any greens you ever saw. The bigger buildings were all white or yellow or light red (I know you won’t trust my colours!), made of stone or brick with plenty of open spaces and pillars in most of them for the sake of cool. The verandahs of any of the business places were more like young colonnades with stone roofs and pillars. The post office was a splendid stone building with plenty of space and huge electric fans whizzing all over it. The native shops were low places with open fronts and heaps of green paint and whitewash. One of the things that struck me as funniest about the shops wasn’t the “squatting about the floor” business, but to see these ordinary, very much European cordial bottles set up in rows in a native shop. They seemed so out of place. I wanted very much to get leave, for I might have been able to get you some decent Indian stuff, dear; but it was no go, for we sailed the next morning early.

I saw Afghans, Babus, Tamils, Congalese, Parsees, and tons of others I couldn’t recognise or find out about. The dress too was as varied as the people. There were long, thin rather good-looking natives in very trim European clothes; fat Portuguese in white slops; fatter Babus in spectacles and rickshaws; fine-looking Afghans in baggy silk trousers, turned-up shoes, and these little “arm hole”’ jackets with red and black patterns on them; Englishmen and women, mostly very pasty-faced and many of the men rather fat. They say, dear, that Colombo is the first place where you see the real East, and it certainly is fascinating. I should like to see more of it; but am not much taken with the idea of living there.

The heat is too much of a good thing. We put out early on Friday morning, and watched the rummy outrigger fishing boats outside the breakwater as we went.

December 18, 1915

El Dabaa, Egypt’s north coast

The mail arrove [sic] yesterday, sweetheart. Four long letters from you - oh chick, you can’t imagine how I have revelled in them.

I had such a huge pile of letters brought to me to censor at the end of the afternoon that I almost despaired of ever getting a start at this. I hate that censoring biz, dear. It’s like poking in where you shouldn’t. By the way, while I was censoring I came across one [letter]. It was a lance-corporal of mine [who] said something about preferring to have his letters censored by strangers rather than by officers he had lived with and learned to measure. He only hoped this would catch his eye because he considered him a “contemptible cur”. Whoever he’s referring to - and I don’t think it’s aimed at me at all, for he didn’t know I was to censor - it’s a pretty rotten way of making statements. One thing one does learn on this game, dear, is not to judge others by his own standards.

My head is far too full of those letters of yours. I read them again, and I just can’t answer them in a breathless hurry like this. The four-leaved clovers arrove [sic] safely in the envelopes. They brought heaps of imaginings too. Do you remember the day we had the picnic at the river at Geraldine and went up through the bush afterwards? Do you remember the day you passed through Timaru on the express and I came to Pareora on the platform? I missed the train back, and walking home found quite a huge clump of four-leaved clovers. But I must stop, chick. I’ve got to set off on a round of sentries.

All my love, little maid, for you alone for always and “after” too.

Your

Lindsay

December 25, 1915

El Dabaa

My Dear Old Lady,

Christmas Day - and I hope with all my heart that it is being a happy one for you, though we both know jolly well what would really complete it? Do you know, too, that you timed two of your letters to land here exactly today - the two written about the end of the second week in November; and you don’t need to be told how much that added to the day.

Now I expect you will want to know how Christmas went in the desert. Well, it went very well considering. No New Zealand gift stuff landed out here for the men but a big load of Australian billies packed with all sorts of things arrived, and everyone at the post had one of these given to him. There aren’t very many Australians stationed here so they just took their own share and passed the rest on. Besides the billies there was a tinned plum duff apiece (also from the Australian gift supply) and a bottle of beer for each man (from the officers), so they did jolly well. The billies had apparently been filled by all sorts of people who sent them in to be packed in crates and shipped off to the troops, because in each one there was a postcard or letter with Christmas greetings to whoever scored the billy, and generally an addressed letter card for a reply. They were packed with all kinds of things - cocoa, insect powder, zam-buk, cigarettes, envelopes, writing paper, safety pins, thread, needles, pencils, cakes, chocolate, potted paste, sardines - anything at all that the sender thought would go down.

The celebration of the day commenced with a late reveille for those who weren’t on outpost. The men were allowed to go over to the beach for a dip, fifty percent in the morning, and the other half in the afternoon. Four of us rode over in the morning. After lunch we mostly settled down for a lazy afternoon as it was pretty hot - and later on the mail came. In the evening we scored a turkey and duff for dinner, and spent the rest of the evening till just a little while ago smoking, playing cards, and rioting generally in the mess tent. And now, missus dear, having written somewhat for you I’ll turn in. Good night, old chap. Wish I was only with you.

This article was first published by the NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.