The weather has got cooler so rapidly that I have been shooting and
playing football quite happily. The chief things to shoot are a big
black partridge (which will soon be extinct) and a little brown dove,
later on there are snipe, and already there are duck, but these are
unapproachable. Many thanks for your letters of August 27th, and
September 8th, which arrived together this mail.
I think Mrs. Ricketts takes an unduly optimistic view when she says
the Germans mean the war to be decided out here. Nothing would suit us
better. Meanwhile, we certainly seem to mean to go to Baghdad, and
that will mean at least one other big fight: but so far they show no
sign of moving us up to the firing line. This last show was a big
success and nearly was a much bigger, only our men having fought for
two days and marched twelve miles in the intervening night and having
run out of water, were not able to press the pursuit very vigorously.
I take it the next show will come off in about three weeks' time,
sooner if possible.
I have heard a good deal vaguely about the Angels at Mons. It is very
interesting. I gather that A. Machen wrote a magazine story and that
this has got embodied with the real stories and is therefore supposed
to have originated them. If Begbie's forthcoming book on them is good,
do send it to me. We have had no such stories out here, so far as I
know.
As to being pessimistic about the future, I think our mistake was to
underestimate Germany's striking force. You must always keep the
German calculations in mind as well as our hopes, and you will see
that the former have been falsified quite as much as the latter--in
fact much more. They calculated--and not without having worked it all
out thoroughly--that their superior armaments and mobility would
enable them (1) to smash France within a few weeks, (2) to manoeuvre
round the Russians and defeat their armies in detail till they sued
for peace, (3) to dominate the continent and organise it for the
settlement with England. We ought to be devoutly thankful that (1)
failed: but Instead we assumed that the worst was over and that (2)
would fail as signally. As a matter of fact (2) looks like failing
after all; but it has been near success for much longer than (1) was
and consequently has achieved more. But if you remember, both Papa and
K. said at the outset it would be a three years' war: which clearly
meant that they expected us to get the worst of it the first year,
equalise matters the second year and not be decisively victorious till
the third year.
Luly has plenty of friends at Agra and is really very happy there, so
you may be at ease about him.
Many thanks for your offer to send us things for the cold. But the
danger is overlapping, so I will refer you to Mamma, to whom I wrote
about it some time back: and I hope _she_ is combining with Mrs.
Bowker of Winchester (wife of 1/4th Colonel) who is organising the
sending of things to the battalion as a whole. You might mention to
Mamma that, in addition to the articles I've told her of, newspapers
and magazines would be very acceptable.
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