send jam tartlets, please. Some day I will try to get our cook here to see what he can do, but I am afraid our soldier man needs more instruction before he can venture on pastry! Now I must stop, as I have a great deal of other business to get done….
They have started shelling us again, bless them!
I was so busy yesterday that I had not a chance of sending you more than a postcard. They sent for me to a hurried conference of the General. I then rode off with another Colonel some miles, and after putting on waders had to reconnoitre our new trenches and go over other ground, marching along these under fire, with the mud, as usual, halfway up to my waist. Such is life over here. I returned about 3 o’clock, and then I had to settle the endless questions which arise in a regt. on active service, from getting the men new boots to arranging whether it was safe for the shoemaker to have a fire in his corner whilst he was busy cobbling. So far the tarts have not arrived. Perhaps they will presently. All the war news looks good; but it is a big war. I only wish I had been out with the “Rufford” at Weston last week. Such a horrible day here, raining hard and everything uncomfortable. I have managed to squeeze into a small house with my adjutant Capt. Wright, and he has to sleep on the boards where we have our meals, whilst the old lady and her servant cook our rations at 1-? francs a day each. You should hear the French we talk!…
Glad the children liked the “meet.”
Your letter did not turn up yesterday! I have been most busy with various things. If you saw my men in a spinning mill sleeping under engines, etc., you would wonder how we exist! Of course, Spring is coming on, and we shall then have to go in for business of the worst type; so whilst someone else is holding the lines, we are now trying to get our men fit for this work. Meals here are quaint, run by a servant girl. She brings breakfast of coffee without milk and an omelette, but we always have our ration of bacon as well. That was a difficulty at first, as neither the adjutant’s nor my book gave the French for bacon. However, by introducing the word
My dearest F——
I am writing this in great haste, as I am just off to the General’s on important business. I was most interested in reading various friends’ letters on my “mention.” What it has really been in the way of being shot at would cover a small campaign three times over, and I do not doubt many of my officers and men have had even a worse time than myself, and there is very much more hard work to come. The French Army can always produce fresh troops for each fresh job, but our smaller army has to send the same troops up to everything, and then when the regiment is reduced to fragments, it is filled up with anyone from anywhere, and to the authorities it is the same as the original good regiment. Before I forget, and in case anything happens to me, I want to tell you again that all my securities are at Cox; there is a list of them in my despatch case, and you will find one lot of title deeds that I had not as yet had time to look over in the Oak Room. I have been so hustled ever since coming from India that it has been impossible to attend to such things….
Yours with love….
We have been very hard at work to-day. At 9.30 last night I received an order to arrange with the priest in a certain village for service the next morning. As my billets extend over a mile, you can imagine that I was not too pleased! This was followed at 11.30 p.m. by another order that we were to be on parade at 6 a.m. Getting home between 7 and 8 a.m., I had to hurry to early service, bolt some breakfast, and present myself at the General’s house at 9 o’clock for a conference. Returning from that, I then had to hand in the men’s winter kits. Next came the orders to move into fresh billets to-night in the dark. This with 1,000 men and 70 horses, whilst I must send a working party of four hundred men to a place 5 or 6 miles off at 10.30 p.m. to-night. How it is all to be done I have not been informed, but you can imagine the chaos that can ensue. We have been comfortable for the last two or three days. After our life in the trenches we can say that we have been
Our little march in the dark was accompanied with heavy rain squalls and the weather turning bitterly cold. We missed our billeting party in the darkness, for it was intense. I think the inside of a public house was appealing to them at the time, so I halted my men, and by sending mounted officers in every direction, with luck I caught some of them. And here we are again, and very comfortable. Of course, we still have our early rising to contend with, but otherwise for the moment things are pretty straight. These Irishmen are most amusing fellows; they can’t be treated like the English soldier: one has to be much more strict with them, and ride them at other times with a much lighter hand. For the next few months, unless Germany collapses at once, there will be
Many thanks for your letter. My new puttees will be most useful, as my old ones are full of holes. We have, during the last day or so, had a strong wind, and the ground is drying up wonderfully, so it will not be so hard on puttees for the future. As a rule, when one walks across country, and struggles through muddy trenches without one’s horse, one wears puttees if one is not wearing long gum boots; these latter keep the legs and feet drier, but the difficulty is that they are too heavy to walk very far in them. I had a long letter from Meta, which I enclose. I am sending two badges to the children from my old coat. I thought they might like them. I look forward very much to the cake you are sending, as the last parcel went astray. My new coat came last night. It is made out of very thick cloth, and altogether loose and useful. There always has been a battalion of the London Irish Rifles (Volunteers), now a territorial corps. The War Office would not allow them to belong to us, because Irish Regiments have no
