The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology. Christina Scull

      18 July 1915 G.B. Smith, who has heard nothing further from Tolkien, writes to him at Abbotsford, Moseley, to cheer him up.

      19 July 1915 Tolkien begins Army training at Bedford. He is billeted in a house with other trainee officers. – R.W. Reynolds writes to Tolkien. He comments on poems Tolkien has sent him: You & Me and the Cottage of Lost Play, The Shores of Faery, Kôr: In a City Lost and Dead, and The Princess Nî are mentioned. He finds in them echoes of Icelandic sagas, William Morris, Rudyard Kipling, and Walter de la Mare. – Probably after he begins training at Bedford, Tolkien writes a poem, Thoughts on Parade.

      ?23 July 1915 Smith writes to Tolkien, probably in reply to a letter. Tolkien can still try to get a transfer after his training, if both commanding officers agree.

      24 July 1915 Tolkien completes the first version of his poem The Happy Mariners, which he dates to 24 July. He will inscribe a later version ‘Barnt Green July 1915 and Bedford and later’, which suggests that he began the poem when he was at Barnt Green earlier in July and continued to work on it after reporting for duty at Bedford. Elements and imagery of The Happy Mariners, such as the white tower in the Twilit Isles that ‘glimmers like a spike of lonely pearl’ and ‘Night’s dragon-headed doors’ (Stapeldon Magazine, June 1920), will come to figure in Tolkien’s mythology.

      26 July 1915 Wiseman writes to Tolkien, in reply to a card. He suggests that Tolkien and Edith visit the Wisemans in London on some weekend after about 14 August.

      August 1915 While still at Bedford Tolkien revises his poem The Trumpets of Faery. – After his initial instruction he joins the rest of the 13th Battalion in Lichfield, *Staffordshire. He apparently is billeted in an encampment outside the city. He does not feel much affinity with his fellow officers, or share their taste for ragtime music; nor does he enjoy the constant drilling and lectures. He will later write of ‘these grey days wasted in wearily going over, over and over again, the dreary topics, the dull backwaters of the art of killing’ (quoted in Biography, p. 78). He spends some time reading Old Icelandic so as not to forget his studies. He will recall being in a dirty wet marquee ‘crowded with (mostly) depressed and wet creatures … listening to somebody lecturing on map-reading, or camp-hygiene, or the art of sticking a fellow through … [when] the man next to me said suddenly in a dreamy voice: “Yes, I think I shall express the accusative case by a prefix!”’ (*A Secret Vice, in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, p. 199) – someone else interested in inventing languages. – At some point during his training Tolkien specializes in signalling. By the beginning of 1916 he will study various ways of transmitting messages by flag, heliograph, and lamp, using codes such as Morse code. Also he has to learn how to use signal-rockets and field-telephones, and carrier-pigeons. One of the books he uses in his studies is Signalling: Morse, Semaphore, Station Work, Despatch Riding, Telephone Cables, Map Reading, ed. E.J. Solano (1915).

      2 August 1915 R.W. Reynolds writes to thank Tolkien for sending him another poem (possibly The Happy Mariners). In response to a request from Tolkien he sends advice about publishing a book of poems. In normal times, Reynolds would have advised Tolkien to first publish single poems in magazines, to establish his name; but as ‘the odds are against your being able to have the leisure for some time to come to go bombarding editors and publishing verses’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford), Tolkien should go ahead with his book, though he should not be disappointed if it fails. Fairy poems, Reynolds thinks, are Tolkien’s strong suit. He is not altogether happy with a title Tolkien has proposed for his book. – Tolkien has also consulted Smith on this point, who (in an undated letter) thinks it worthwhile for Tolkien to publish his poems.

      4 August 1915 Tolkien rewrites his poem Thoughts on Parade, now called The Swallow and the Traveller on the Plains.

      ?Mid–late August 1915 Christopher Wiseman urges Tolkien and Edith to spend one of the next two weekends at the Wiseman home in London. He will try to get Smith to come as well. (There is no evidence that the visit occurred.)

      9 September 1915 Tolkien rewrites The Happy Mariners, now linked explicitly with Eärendel.

      12 September 1915 Tolkien writes a poem, *A Song of Aryador, while at Whittington Heath camp near Lichfield. Later, in The Book of Lost Tales, it will be said that when Men entered Hisilómë which they called Aryador, some of the Elves who were lost on the march to Valinor still dwelt there and were feared by Men who called them the Shadow Folk.

      13 September 1915 After a long silence Rob Gilson, temporarily in the 3rd Durham Temporary Hospital, Sunderland, writes to Tolkien at Exeter College, forwarded to Whittington Heath. He is annoyed that he has not taken up Tolkien’s invitation to criticize his poems, as he feels that one of the best things the T.C.B.S. can do at present is to help its members with their creative work.

      14 September 1915 At Whittington Heath, Tolkien writes a poem, Dark Are the Clouds about the North.

      17 September 1915 Gilson writes from the 3rd Durham Temporary Hospital, Sunderland, to Tolkien at Whittington Heath. He has received a number of T.C.B.S. letters in the past few days, including one from Tolkien enclosing some of his poems. Gilson is about to be released from hospital and will have a week of sick leave at Marston Green; if Tolkien cannot visit him there, Gilson will travel to Lichfield.

      19 September 1915 R.W. Reynolds writes to Tolkien at Whittington Heath and thanks him for sending his poems. He likes all of them, though he makes some criticisms. He wonders if Tolkien has thought of a new title for his book.

      Autumn 1915 Tolkien and a fellow officer buy a motor cycle. Tolkien will use it to visit Edith and friends when he has leave.

      21 September 1915 Gilson writes from Marston Green to Tolkien at Whittington Heath. He has sent telegrams to Wiseman and Smith asking them to come to Lichfield on Saturday (25 September) if possible.

      23 September 1915 Wiseman, now at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, writes to Tolkien at Whittington Heath. He intends to be present at the ‘Council of Lichfield’ on 25–26 September. – Gilson, who has heard from Smith, writes to Tolkien that all four T.C.B.S. members can be in Lichfield on 25 September, and asks if Tolkien can find three beds there for the night. He suggests that they have lunch the following day at the Gilsons’ home at Marston Green and a quiet afternoon in the garden.

      24 September 1915 Gilson informs Tolkien by telegram that he and Smith will arrive in Lichfield at 10.34 am on the 25th and make the George Hotel their headquarters.

      25 September 1915 At 11.00 a.m. Gilson and Smith write to Tolkien from the George Hotel, Lichfield. They hope to meet him at the hotel when they return from sightseeing just before 1.00 p.m., if not sooner. – O.O. Staples, B.J. Tolhurst, and M.W.M. Windle of Exeter College are killed in action in the Battle of Loos.

      25–26 September 1915 The T.C.B.S. ‘Council of Lichfield’. This is the last time that Tolkien, Gilson, Smith, and Wiseman meet together before being separated by war, and apparently the last time that Tolkien sees Gilson.

      5 October 1915 Gilson, now with his battalion at No. 2 Camp, Sutton Veny, writes to Tolkien. He and Smith have decided that Tolkien should send his book of poems to the publisher Sidgwick & Jackson. Tolkien should not forget the proposed ‘Council of Bath’, and should try to keep both 16 and 23 October as possible dates.

      6 October 1915 Smith writes to Tolkien from the York House Hotel, Bath. Smith and Gilson are making a preliminary excursion to Bath and have practically engaged inexpensive rooms in the South Parade for a T.C.B.S. ‘council’ on 23 October.

      9 October 1915 Smith writes to Tolkien that he is sorry he has not had time to reply to Tolkien’s impressive postcard. He recommends that Tolkien send his poems to the publisher Hodder and Stoughton,