Letters from Harold Edward 'Pompey' Elliott to his sister-in-law, April 1915 - December 1916 - Part 1

On Board Ship
22/4/135
Dear Belle,
I was very disappointed this
mail not to get a letter from Katie
in fact no letter at all.
Then today a further lot of letters
arrived with yours amongst them
Tell the little lady I got her letter & was
very pleased indeed to get it. But I am
still in the dark as to the operation
as Geordie's letter never came 
to light & I will anxiously await
the arrival of the next mail when
Katies own letter may come. In the
last letter I had from Katie there was
no mention of the operation. In fact
she was thinking of a trip to Healesville
with the Bairns.
Mr Gilpin was very kind indeed to
give you three months leave to look after the wee
ones & I must thank you for your care of
them. I am very glad you liked the lace
collar Belle. It is a very little return
for all your goodness to us. Katie must
give you one of the silk lengths I sent 
out last for a frock. It will be some
little acknowledgment. Poor Katie. I hope
she did not have to suffer much pain. It
is a pity I was not there at such a
time  Katie would be worrying. We are
still awaiting the word go here. It is
now practically three weeks since we
left Egypt & the plans are still
apparantly maturing I suppose.
There is no disguising the fact
that the job in front of us to outward
Appearance at any rate looks pretty
risky. Much depends on the sort of
fight the enemy puts up & those of us
with Bairns have had many an anxious
thougts the last few days. Long before this 
reaches you no doubt you will have
heard of our success or failure & for some
of us no doubt our troubles will have 
ceased. We are of course all hoping that we 
will not be the unfortunate who has to 
pay the price of Victory. But it has
 

to be paid without a doubt and I am
very sad at the thought of losing even
one of my flock. All the offcers have
turned out very well indeed & I would
not change any of them in spite of 
the fact that I still have to "rough them up"
occasionally. But they are all such 
good pals that the loss of ane one will
create a terrible blank for those that 
are left. 
I was delighted to hear your story of
the little lady immitating Miss Hall.
It is strange how the wee laddy laddie 
has not forgotten all about his "Dida"
by this time. He surely cannot
have much memory of me by now
Tell him he must make Mum
better & always look after her for "Dida"
Well there does not appear to be much
More news to tell. Give My love to Grandma
& Nana & heaps of tickles to the wee pets. 
Yours sincerely 
 HE Elliott

At Sea
21^st Nov 1915
My dear Baaby,
For sending me this packet of paper you
shall have a letter all your own. And first I must thank you Very much
indeed for looking after Katie and the wee pets for me. Always & ever
I and they will love you for it & my home & their home will
always be your home whenever you want one. But that it would
be selfish not to hope for a hme & a man of your own for you I would wish that
it might be your home always. We will grudge you to wherever you
go Baaby dear however good & worthy of you he may be & we shall
be pleased if you can be truly happy without anyone but content to
make your home with us & I will love you as well as the most of
the men you will get I think, & the bairnies love you as if you
were their mummy already dont you think? I had a very
pleasant time of it in England but all the time & still I
have the feeling that if I had not been a "Colonel" my welcome,
except from my aunt Mary (who is a darling dear) & my uncle
who is a fine old chap, my in all probability would
not have been so hearty. But then one has no right to look
a gift horse in the mouth & I was Very pleased to find all of the
relatives I saw comfortably off & evidently considerably respected
by everyone around them. All my mothers people seem to be in or
connected with the Army Navy or Indian Civil Service. The one who
has done best to the present seems to be ^Rear Admiral Tottenham who has been
serving in the North Sea & has just been given the CB. for good Service. I saw
& lot of intersting old family letters portraits etc etc, & I think they all
more or less after a while were satisfied with me after a fashion
But it wasn't home a bit & I was all the time longing for my wee
bairnies my Katie & Baaby & Nana who know as
themselves
 

Miss Campbell
29 Mitchell Street
Northcote
Victoria
Australia
[*H.E. Elliott*]
 

Egypt
8 Jan 1916
My dear old Baaby, 
Thanks very much for taking
all the pictures of the little people & sending
them on to me I like the one best where the
laddie is behind Mum & the wee Dhuract sitting
on her Knee that one was in the first lot
but the other ones are lovely too where
Katie is holding up a xxx got chocolate or something
& also the one where the laddie is up on a
stool & another where he is kneeling
down as if he was proposing or
something. I’ll give you a fr 29 for
[[?]] one of them some day 
Katie looks very thin in some of them.
Where she is taken with Dhuract 
pointing her finger out  of the picture she looks well
but in the later one she looks much 
thinner. You must look after that dear  
old lady for me Baaby dear, I'd be 
very lonely & sad over here if anything happened
to her. I hope you will be able to stay with
us always. We will love you good always
Dida & Mum & the wee pets. We wouldn't like
to part with you to any man at all for
fear he would not be good enough to

 

you. I have not seen Jack since we left
Tel el Kebir. They are at some other place
now. Not very far away though & I don't
think there are any enemy about where
they are any more than here. We are
all making good preparations to give
them a warm reception when they
come if they do. I hope to have Jack
over with me soon as a Transport
Officer. I've told Bob Smith what a
good man he would be with horses but
Smith seemed to have a man of his own
he preferred. Bob doesn't ^always judge men well 
himself I never seldom fail somehow to pick good
men for the positions I want them for. I
have failed to get good results on one or
two occasions when I have permitted
other motives to influence me such as that
a man is a senior man & has done good
work at the job he is at. On these principles
you very often spoil a man by fitting a
square peg into a round hole. Often it
is very hard on a man to be repeatedly
passed over because he would not
 

make a good officer who is doing
splendid work as a non com
yet if you are to have efficiency it
must be done
Well Baaby dear there is sure enough
not a bit of news to write to you
about
I was hopeful another mail was to 
come in from Australia this morning
but so far nothing has come in. 
It is very dull and dreary here 
nothing but sand everywhere. The little 
people might enjoy it. It is all Beach 
here. Today is pretty middling hot but 
the nights are cool.
Bye now Baaby dear & be sure to 
 send a page on for me 
Yours sincerely 
Dida

 

Tel el Kebir
Egypt
16/1/16
My dear Baaby, 
If you cash up all these 
promissory pogues you have been promising
me while I've been away I shall have a
good time when I get home again. But 
I specks you'll want to go Bankrupt 
& pay about 1 in a million especially 
as I hear you are writing to some one 
who is a pal of Jacko. I'm shure 'stonished
Baaby You must be coming to light 
to have a man to write to. No wonder 
I only got a wee  sperrik of a letter. The 
cake duly arrived a bit battered but
good to eat nevertheless. I must say  
however that the Cake got to me a week 
or so before the letter & so I couldn't follow 
good instructions not to give it all away. 

I had one piece all right but it clean 
vanished before the next meal. I expect 
xxx the Mess Waiters Batmen had a good old feed of it. 
It was very nice however what I had of 
it. I was delighted with the Photos of 
the wee people. They look such little pets 
Haven't they grown a lot. Jack is looking 
very well indeed. He is getting brown 
& fat like all of us since we came 

 

to Egypt. He is letting his moustache
grow again & ^who is much more like
what I used to see when I Knew him
first than he was in the trenches.
He is happy as the day is long. I
got my machine gunners to challenge
Jack's men to a contest for speed
of coming into action with the gun
& getting is out afterwards. This is
to come off on Wednesday week.
There is talk of the 2^nd Division
i e. the one Bob Smith & Jack are with
going down to the Canal shortly
I think we will be here longer. We have
lost such a lot of the old men & the
new men require a lot of careful training
to get them up to the old standard. The
2^nd Division hardly had any real fighting
as we had it in the early days. After the 
fighting in August just before I left both Sides seemed
to have had enough of it & after that it was practically
all artillery work no bayonets & only a little
sniping. Even in Lone Pine itself were we were
always sure of a bit of a fight the last four
days the Regiment was there they only had one man
hit. Well Baaby dear I must stop ^now I have 
[* heaps & heaps of letters to answer. They have been piling
up all the time I’ve been away. But I still dont love 
anyone better than my old lady my bairnies & my Baaby
Pogues Deear from Dida*]
 

19^th Feb 1916
My dear Baaby
I have received all at 
once a letter dated the 31^st August 
a Post Card dated the 9^th of August 
and a letter dated the 16^th of January
last. So I am quite cheerful especially 
as I got a heap of letters from Katie 
at the same time as well as other 
ones from different people. I needed cheering 
up too for I am pretty sad They have 
sent me away from my 7^th Boys to 
take charge of the 1^st Brigade who 
are all N.S.W. men & I don't know 
a single soul amongst them all 
I won't post you any more for being 
scared of a new job. Pretty Scared
me Baaby  I ^have Got 4000 men that dont 
Know me or care anything about me
& I've got to take charge of them & take
them into a fight sometime & I dont know 
who are the good ones & who cannot be 
trusted & I am away from all my 
pals & all these 4000 lives may depend 
on me if I don't make up my 
mind what to do quickly enough