October 27th, 1916.
Dearest Family:
All to-day I've been busy registering our guns. There is little chance
of rest--one would suppose that we intended to end the war by spring.
Two new officers joined our battery from England, which makes the work
lighter. One of them brings the news that D., one of the two officers
who crossed over from England with me and wandered through France with
me in search of our Division, is already dead. He was a corking fellow,
and I'm very sorry. He was caught by a shell in the head and legs.
I am still living in a sand-bagged shell-hole eight feet beneath the
level of the ground. I have a sleeping bag with an eider-down inside it,
for my bed; it is laid on a stretcher, which is placed in a roofed-in
trench. For meals, when there isn't a block on the roads, we do very
well; we subscribe pretty heavily to the mess, and have an officer back
at the wagon-lines to do our purchasing. When we move forward into a new
position, however, we go pretty short, as roads have to be built for the
throng of traffic. Most of what we eat is tinned--and I never want to
see tinned salmon again when this war is ended. I have a personal
servant, a groom and two horses--but haven't been on a horse for seven
weeks on account of being in action. We're all pretty fed up with
continuous firing and living so many hours in the trenches. The way
artillery is run to-day an artillery lieutenant is more in the trenches
than an infantryman--the only thing he doesn't do is to go over the
parapet in an attack. And one of our chaps did that the other day,
charging the Huns with a bar of chocolate in one hand and a revolver in
the other. I believe he set a fashion which will be imitated. Three
times in my experience I have seen the infantry jump out of their
trenches and go across. It's a sight never to be forgotten. One time
there were machine guns behind me and they sent a message to me, asking
me to lie down and take cover. That was impossible, as I was observing
for my brigade, so I lay on the parapet till the bullets began to fall
too close for comfort, then I dodged out into a shell-hole with the
German barrage bursting all around me, and had a most gorgeous view of
a modern attack. That was some time ago, so you needn't be nervous.
Have I mentioned rum to you? I never tasted it to my knowledge until I
came out here. We get it served us whenever we're wet. It's the one
thing which keeps a man alive in the winter--you can sleep when you're
drenched through and never get a cold if you take it.
At night, by a fire, eight feet underground, we sing all the dear old
songs. We manage a kind of glee--Clementina, The Long, Long Trail, Three
Blind Mice, Long, Long Ago, Rock of Ages. Hymns are quite favourites.
Don't worry about me; your prayers weave round me a mantle of defence.
Yours with more love than I can write,