Journey's end Book

Life in a dugout. The steps lead towards a trench.

ROBERT Cedric Sherriff was born in 1896 and educated at Kingston Grammar School and New College, Oxford. On the outbreak of the First World War, he joined the army and served as a captain in the East Surrey regiment. Once the war ended, an interest in amateur theatricals led him to
try his hand at writing.
The huge success of his play, Journey's End, published in 1929, in both Europe and America enabled Sherriff to become a full-time writer. He wrote many successful plays and screenplays. He also wrote novels. However, the English writer was best known for his play Journey's End, which was based on his experiences as an army officer in the First World War.


A cover of Sherriff's "Journey's End" shows soldiers holding rifles fixed with bayonets inside a trench.

Even though I have read many anti-war poems dealing with the First World War, which were all written by youths like Owen and Sassoon who had experienced the war in the trenches, this is the first time that I have read a play regarding it.

Dreamers

By SIEGFRIED SASSOON

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.

Journey's End opens in a dugout in the trenches in France in March 1918. It deals with the lives of several officers who drink, eat, read and sleep in the dugout. When not doing any of these things, they are out in the trenches keeping watch or fighting with the enemy or laying barbed wire. But Mr. Sherriff never takes the story out of the dugout, as somebody is always telling as to what took place in the trenches or on the battlefield.
Battles and wars are all about facing the enemy and fighting with all your might and courage. However, sometimes it also means running at full speed to escape death like the following extract shows:
"TROTTER: Just wear your belt with revolver case on it. Must have your revolver to shoot rats. And your gas mask - come here - I'll show you. (He helps Raleigh.) You wear it sort of tucked up under your chin like a serviette.
RALEIGH: Yes. I was shown the way at home.
TROTTER: Now your hat. That's right. You don't want a walking stick. It gets in your way if you have to run fast.
RALEIGH: Why - er - do you have to run fast?
TROTTER: Oh, Lord, yes often. If you see a Minnie coming - that's a big trench mortar shell, you know - short for Minnywerfer - you see them come right out of the Boche trenches, right up in the air, then down, down, down; and you have to judge it and run like stink sometimes."


Ravaged battlefield, c. 1916.

Here is an extract from the play which shows the Brits praising their nemesis -- the Germans -- rather than shredding them to bits. This alone shows you that Mr. Sherriff wrote the book from his heart and provides credit where it is due.
"RALEIGH (after a pause): The Germans are really quite decent, aren't they? I mean, outside the newspapers.
OSBORNE: Yes. (Pause.) I remember up at Wipers we had a man shot when he was out on patrol. Just at dawn. We couldn't get him in that night. He lay out there groaning all day. Next night three of our men crawled out to get him in. It was so near the German trenches that they could have shot our fellows one by one. But, when our men began dragging the wounded man back over the rough ground, a big German officer stood up in the trenches and called out: 'Carry him!' - and our fellows stood up and carried the man back and the German officer fired some lights for them to see by.
RALEIGH: How topping!
OSBORNE: Next day we blew each other's trenches to blazes.
RALEIGH: It all seems rather - silly, doesn't it?
OSBORNE: It does rather."


Two German soldiers and their mule wearing gas masks in World War One, 1916.

All soldiers and officers had to wear masks for protection from the deadly gas called Phosgene which was released into the atmosphere by the Germans. The following extract shows the details regarding it:
"TROTTER: I reckon they will. I remember one morning last week - we was coming out of the salient just when it was getting light in the morning - it was at the time when the Boche was sending over a lot of gas that smells like pear-drops, you know?
OSBORNE: I know. Phosgene.
TROTTER: That's it. We were scared to hell of it. All of a sudden we smelt that funny sweet smell and a fellow shouted 'Gas!' - and we put on our masks, and then I spotted what it was."


Gas warfare informational poster of World War One showing a soldier with his gas mask off.

Often it is the futility and senselessness of war that makes you appreciate the value of life and the beauty of nature which you earlier might not have. In how many colours have you seen the sun rising and setting? Read how Osborne feels in the following quote:
"OSBORNE: I never knew the sun could rise in so many ways till I came out
here. Green, and pink, and red, and blue, and grey. Extraordinary, isn't it?"

Sometimes you have to read something funny or say something humorous to kill the boredom and drabness of war or as an escape from reality. Do control your laughter on reading what Trotter is reciting.
"TROTTER (reciting):
'Tell me, mother, what is that,
That looks like strawberry jam?
Hush, hush, my dear; it's only Pa
Run over by a tram - '"

Osborne reads Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" during his rest hours for enjoyment and escapism. He reads loudly so that Trotter too can hear it.
"How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale?

How cheerfully he seems to grin
And neatly spread his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!"

Even crocodile smiles can be so deceiving. We had always known about its tears. By the way, Osborne is reading in candlelight as sunshine hardly comes inside the dugouts. When several candles are burning at the same time, it can make the temperature quite hot and unbearable. Then there were rats which nibbled at your shoes and worms which made you feel queasy.
The officers only get to sleep in short stints of two to three hours. On waking up, they have their tea and then immediately head for the trenches for duty. The cook too sleeps in his dugout and is always being called by one officer or another to serve breakfast, lunch or dinner or tea with jam
and bread.


Two German soldiers keep watch while the rest sleep in a trench. Lice, dirt, vermin, dysentery, battle fatigue/shell shock, trench foot, trench mouth, mud, snow, heat and rain were some of the other odds they faced besides the enemy.

I loved the book from start to finish. It shows the horrors of war and the rough and tough life spent inside dugouts without glorifying it in any way. And who better for the job than R. C. Sherriff who had first-hand experience of it!


No caption necessary as the quote says it all.

Laurence Olivier starred as Stanhope in the first performance of Journey's End in 1928; the play was an instant stage success and remains a great anti-war classic. The cover of the book that I own shows the poster for the 1929 Savoy Theatre production of Journey's End. An officer can be seen
climbing the steps leading to a trench from the dugout.


A flyer for a classic play that was running in Ypres, Belgium.

A film based on the book was made in 1976. It was called "Aces High". However, its director, Jack Gold, has also added some portions from Cecil Lewis's book "Sagittarius Rising". Besides, he has shifted the First World War story from trenches to the sky with air force pilots involved in dogfights. Even then the story remains pretty much the same. It has a great cast which includes Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Plummer, Peter Firth and Simon Ward.


A Japanese DVD cover of "Aces High".