(65)
July 5, ’15. 5 P.M.
MY DEAREST MUMMY & DADDY,—Got your cheery letter last night—They sort
the letters earlier now—before midnight. These ‘close order’ letters are
rather absurd—but it is something to do with the trains catching the
mail—or rather vice versa! You’ll have to just take them en masse!
Well—rather amusing this morning—the Bosches suddenly sent over an
extraordinary object—a _sort_ of aerial torpedo—which no doubt you know
of. This they fired from just behind their front line only 200 yards off
at most—aiming for the Estaminet which our line (my platoon) circles
round. The thing came trundling through the air—you could actually see
it rolling over and over—rolly-poly we call it! There were shouts and
the men fled from where they could guess it would drop—then the thing
dropped—and Jack J’s weren’t in it for explosion! They sent 3 of these
things over and it was really rather funny—seeing a great sausage
lolloping through the air—it takes about 5 mins. to land!
We got the artillery onto them and have had no more trouble since.
We had quite a merry evening last night: there was an attack on further
south and the dickins of a noise, and we pumped over some rifle-grenades
just to show there was no ill-feeling up our way—also I took out a
brace of my N.C.O’s and attempted to give them some more to digest.
As luck would have it both my efforts were ‘duds’—In other words they
refused to explode—the other three grenades I couldn’t get the pin out
of for firing—so I got beastly wet—lost a handkerchief and my temper for
nothing—It’s an easy job here, as we are so near them, and as I told you
before Fritz is much too busy at his game behind the barricade he has had
the unbounded cheek to erect so near our lines, to notice our little
wanderings.—It is this ‘little game’ of his that we want to discover and
to put an end to—because we have an idea that he is attempting to blow
the Estaminet up and, incidentally, us with it! However—‘ne craignez
pas—pour nous partons demain!’ Twiggez-vous?
Old Clarke was at his best this morning when they sent the sausage
over—The first landed just over his (and as it happened mine) booby—and
out he came like a shot rabbit—his language—oh! ‘priceless’ isn’t the
word!
He then lay out (in the most exposed part of the trench) and
drawled—‘Fritz can do what he jolly well likes etc: etc:!’
His sarcasm is really worthy of some of my Eton friends! He said that
they kept our guns in a glass case—he was dead on our guns—and well he
might be, considering that they never do a jolly thing up this way. If
they do wake up they unfailingly drop 1 in 6 into _our_ front line or
just in front in their fatherly way—I love to hear the remarks passed
on them—I endorse them all fully myself! Clarke’s remark that they gave
us ‘O-hello’ this morning was rather nice! Some of the officers of a
Territorial Division just come up here spent the night with us, in order
to acquaint themselves with the trench and its many vicissitudes! They
will be relieving us probably tomorrow—and it _is_ possible that we shall
go back altogether for a week or more to reorganize. We shall go behind—a
good way back somewhere and generally collect ourselves, for we want
collecting. This is only a possibility though at present.
About Crump—he was shot dead outside my booby—just when another death we
know of occurred—so I didn’t mention it in my letter—it wasn’t at all
necessary.... He was a brave fellow....
As for casualties—there have been _very_ few in our Coy: none in my
platoon since the above—over a week ago now. These flies are the
_limit_—there’s old Clarke at it again. He’s wildly excited because our
chaps have shut up one of their most officious batteries on our right
with a brace of heavy explosives—‘There’ll be a Court of Inquiry on
that,’ says Clarke!
It is a fairly placid evening—a little shelling by the Bosches—but
nowhere near our line—we are too near their own crowd to be shelled very
frequently—only when they have the exact range.
My men are cleaning their rifles and there is one of our aeroplanes doing
good business overhead—a little sniping—not much. I think it is time I
sent over a few more rifle-grenades—We’ve got a machine that puts them
in accurately to a yard and they do a lot of damage. It will stay quiet
until about 8 P.M. when there will be ‘wind up’ for 2 hours—heavy rifle
fire on both sides—then fairly quiet for rest of night unless we drop
bombs on them like we did last night. Then Fritz gets in such a funk that
he shoots off wildly in _all_ directions except the right one! I must
agree with him—it _is_ a nasty thing to be bombarded by an unseen and
unlocated enemy in the shape of me or one of my men. We only gave them 3
last night though—rather a wash-out.
The wily dogs spotted a stack of rubbish-straw etc: in the Estaminet
last evening and sent across _flares_ to set it on fire. They succeeded
in doing so, but we[8] put earth and water on it before daylight today:
so again it was Checkmate to Fritz—The ‘Jocks’ took a section of their
opposing trenches yesterday—I wish we could rush these ugly sandbags in
front of us—but I fear there is no such luck.
—— is a funny card—he comes tearing down here with drops of perspiration
streaming off his long nose, speaking at a terrific rate and expecting
you to take it all down verbatim—then whisks off again.—de la Mare comes
across him more than I of course—The rest of my conversation with Clarke
was strictly ‘business’ just now!