‘Trusty and Well Beloved’ ‘Trusty and Well Beloved’ The Little Record of Arthur Oscar Hornung Second Lieutenant 3rd (attached 2nd) Essex Regiment E. W. H. Privately Printed 1915 [1] ‘TRUSTY AND WELL BELOVED’ I It was the Essex Regiment because Oscar happened to be reading history in Essex when war broke out, and from that moment he just lived ‘to have a plug at those blighters over the water.’ The nearest barracks called him and he went no farther, finding his own way at once into the Third Battalion. His Commission was one of the multitude dated August 15, 1914, but not gazetted for another month, and it was other seven before Oscar ‘went with his enthusiasm to France.’[1] His last leave was on his twentieth birthday, and a week later he wrote:[2] I am waiting to go off any night now—I am longing to go—it is a chance for us chaps, isn’t it? It is the one good thing the war has done—to give public-school fellows a chance—they are the one class who are enjoying themselves in this war. [2] At any rate Oscar enjoyed himself, from the very hour of his departure, on an April morning as sunny as his smile, in charge of a draft as delighted as himself. That night they embarked at Southampton, and the Seine was a river of roses in the morning: The country on each side of the river is lovely—great woods and ravines with large old Louis XV châteaux perched high among them, and then at the foot of the hills pretty little villages, all looking so much cleaner than our English ones! Then again in the villages there are all the inhabitants standing outside their doors waving handkerchiefs and even firing off guns to welcome us as we speed up-river at well over 20 knots.... One sporting kid in a village a little way back sang out ‘Are we downhearted?’ and of course she got back a roar from us ‘No!’ ... I have never seen country looking so ripping as this—at such a time of year too.... I sailed into Southampton yesterday and got my chaps 50 packets of Peters’ chocolate to keep them going in case we run short of Rations—which we may very possibly do. It is glorious this rolling up the Seine to the cheers of the French on both banks and our own men (of all kinds of Regiments) singing ‘Tipperary’ for all they are worth!