To-day we were expecting to get up late, parade this morning 9-30,
but, unfortunately, we were wakened at 7-0 o'clock and told to parade
at 8-0 for inspection by our Corps Commander, and spent the whole
morning standing still while we were inspected. It is extremely tiring
to stand still for half an hour or more, more tiring than marching for
hours. The rest of the day we spent cleaning up everything. Now we are
sleeping in three different rooms. In here two sleep, and we all eat
in another room, six feet by eight feet, three of us have our mattress
on the floor and one more in a small room by himself. Most of the
rooms lead out of the kitchen. In the kitchen most of the servants and
a few other men hob-nob with Madame and her buxom daughter, who are
Belgian refugees, and who are very agreeable and don't seem to mind us
over-running the whole place, and soldiers coming in to their kitchen,
where they live, in all stages of dishabile, to buy huge bowls of
coffee at 1d. each. The General this morning was a cheery untidy old
soul, who reviewed the troops in an old mackintosh and gum boots and a
day's beard, or I should think the result of a bad razor. He addressed
us afterwards in an oration full of split infinitives and mixed
metaphors, welcoming us to France for a few month's holiday.
I perpetrated quite one of my best efforts to-night. I went into a
shop, where I hoped to get potted meat, and asked for "pâté en
bottine," which being interpreted is meat in boots, which was
unfortunate. Parker then entered another shop and asked "Je desire un
larabeau si vous l'avez," which means "I want a basin, if you have
one." But, unfortunately, the good lady thought he meant not "si vous
l'avez" if you have it, but "si you lavez" if you wash. I am afraid
that No. 36 was delayed, and so it arrived at the same time as No. 37,
I suppose. Read both very carefully together and you will perchance be
interested. To-day I had an inspiration. We could not get anywhere for
the men to bathe for the last week or two and this morning I was
desperate. I believe a lot of the little friends which are said to
dwell with the soldiers are due to troops in the same conditions not
having an inspiration and so starting badly. The idea was almost too
simple. I dug four holes in the ground and pegged a waterproof sheet
in it, and got four dixifuls of hot water, so that each section of my
platoon had a bath per platoon and water not quite cold. As there was
a gentle zephyr wind blowing and a nice warm sun it was very pleasing.
We have been having topping fine weather--hardly any rain so far.
Good-night, Mother,
From your loving Son,
ALEC.
11TH SUFFOLKS,
B.E.F.
My darling Mother,
I hope you got my last letters all right and understood them. Since
writing them I have moved, but the battalion has not. Two of us and 71
men are on a course in trench mortars. We have moved some 12 miles
further, and are, I think, about three miles from where Arthur was. We
came right up here in 'busses, and arrived here no one seemed to know
anything about us, so we had to forage round and get billets for our
men and then for ourselves. When all was settled, an officer came and
told us he had orders from his brigade to have these billets for a
battalion just coming out of the trenches, so we started off again,
and finally fixed the men up and in the end ourselves in an estaminet
(whisper it softly--a pub.) in a wee room with one large bed. We both
then slept on the bed and used the rest of the room for storing our
clothes in. The men were roused up in the night by a false alarm from
the trenches, but they did not disturb us. To-day we breakfasted at
9-0 and were lectured to in the morning and afternoon by an officer,
who came out of the trenches yesterday afternoon. This evening we went
to a fairly large town near here and had tea and dinner. At tea we
found a large major leaving the cafe and vainly looking for his cap.
At length he got the services of a waitress. "I've lost my cap" ("ton
chapeau?") "Call it what you like as long as you find it." He was
rather amusing. Dinner we had in the usual French cafe I have
described before, and returned home to bed. The other man has gone to
another estaminet and so I am sleeping alone. The house is on a slight
rise, so from my window at night I can see a huge circle with lights
going up every minute here and there--star shells, they quite light up
the room, then flashes and a boom. They have just been quite bad
tempered a few miles north of us and have been making a dickens of a
row. I think it is a nuisance that ought to be stopped, it must be
quite annoying to the people round. Now they are getting distinctly
unfriendly to the south for a little. It looks like a fifth of
November show, rather long drawn-out.
Please excuse this writing, as I am lying down in bed.
Good-night, little Mother,
Your loving Son,
ALEC.
I meant to send this letter off to-day, but I have not been able to.
This morning we breakfasted at the gentlemanly hour of 9-0 off
omelettes from the estaminet, bacon (a ration), coffee, marmalade and
bread and butter. We did a little work this morning, lunched off bread
and butter and marmalade and then a lecture, and then we went into the
town for tea and dinner. They have a very nice cafe place here--a
private house. Madam's husband is a prisoner, and her husband told her
to be "gaie," so she runs a cafe and enjoys herself. We had a very
good tea; they have some very nice cakes called gauffes (I don't quite
know how to spell it), like sweet pancakes, and afterwards a bath. The
division has some baths. There is a starch factory--I think it is--and
there are some large sort of square vats in it. They are used as baths
for officers; they have three big vats, one very big, and they are as
hot as you like, and are 8 feet by 4 by 4 feet deep, and you can have
a topping bath in them--you can just swim a stroke or two. Then
afterwards we had a cold plunge in a very big one. It was simply
delicious and cost us nothing. One of the best baths I have ever had.
I had one bath to myself and Bill Fiddian the other. Then we went to
dinner and enjoyed ourselves muchly. Soup, veal, chicken, coffee, all
for 3/9 or rather five francs--a franc equals about 9d now, as English
credit is very good--and then home to bed.
To-night the machine guns seem rather busy. I have just heard one let
off a few hundred rounds, but I don't think one round in a thousand
hits a man. There is one busy popping off now. It is funny being a
sort of spectator. Things are pretty quiet really at present, as I saw
in a captured German letter from a German soldier to his mother. "In
the spring the curtain will rise"--I wonder who will pull the string.
They are noisy to-night, a lot of waste of ammunition, both rifle and
machine guns going on. It is a calm night so the noise carried.
Well, good-night, Mother,
Much love to all,
From your loving Son,
ALEC.
There they go: rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat, a machine gun.
11TH SUFFOLKS,
B.E.F., Saturday, January 29th.