After weeks of waiting in the reserve line, David Barrogill Keith now writes to his family in Thurso to let them know that he is about to go forward into the trenches. In one of his few references to the casualties the army had suffered in the Battle of Loos he says that his cousin George is coming home on leave, after having “all his chums knocked out”.
The tone of the letter is sombre, and DB Keith is obviously preparing his family for the worst: “And here now on the verge of this trench war I feel a strength & confidence that I hope & believe will carry me thro’ so that at all events you will not I hope have cause to be ashamed of how I faced the foe”.
Within a few days he would be in the trenches and experiencing the war at first hand.
Dated: October 1915, 10th Cameronians, B.E.F.
My dear Mother,
George is taking this letter across with him when he goes on leave tomorrow. I hope he has a good holiday as he has had a pretty rotten time on the whole with all his chums knocked out.
Things are rather quiet here on the whole & tonight we leave billets to go into the trenches, but it is improbable that things will be busy where we go as we got a pretty severe knock so lately.
However as now I am in command of my company I will have a great deal to do & won’t get many letters written even if facilities for posting them occur, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for ten days or so. It will certainly do nobody good. Of course nowhere in the trenches is absolutely safe but still it’s not very bad in the support & not in the firing line. But we will be awfully busy working there & with no sleep at night I may find my hands full.
I got on very well here on the whole. The adjutant was going on leave on Friday or Saturday & I was to be acting adjutant in his stead. Now in all probability leave is off.
Well I can’t say much more as after all there is little to say. This time next week I will have either settled down to the trenches or be sick. Somehow I feel I will like the change into the trenches. After all my years at the Varsity were fighting ones & I was ever a fighter, so one fight more. In all the things I have tackled, tho’ I says it as it shouldn’t, I have fought with all my soul & I have, tho’ the honour is not mine, in all won through. And here now on the verge of this trench war I feel a strength & confidence that I hope & believe will carry me thro’ so that at all events you will not I hope have cause to be ashamed of how I faced the foe.
This must be all as it is now about 11 & I have to go across to George with this & after that probably more work.
I have the honour of taking “A” Coy into the trenches with only one other officer to help me in this tho’, and this officer arrived tonight but had he been posted to A would have taken over command. Fear not I’ll win thro’ all right.
Best wishes and love,
from
DB Keith
[Caithness Archive Centre reference P38/10/9; the next letter from DB Keith will be published on 2 November]
