27 July 1917 – To Gladys

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Transcription

27. 7. 17.

My dear Glad.

Many thanks for a letter from you to-day also for others from Mother & Father & for some shortbread, which is much appreciated. I am glad Jane is flourishing, but regret her determined temper. I notice that all the family comment on it & all say that it is acquired from her ma – so now you know. We are still back in bouviacs, but will be going up the line in two or three days. I was up in the early hours yesterday morning having a look round, when things were quiet & incidentally got drenched, but it was only a passing storm & the weather is fine again & I trust it will remain so. I am rather busy at the moment as I have the running of the panto. on my hands & there are a lot of incidentals which want

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looking after. We took the men to a Cinema to-day, but it was too hot to be enjoyable, so I cleared off early. Incidentally I passed a church army Hut, which has just had an 11 inch shell bursting just outside, so it is not so ornamental as it was. The Bosch has learnt the trick of shelling back areas from us & is doing a lot more of it than he used to – with very little except moral effect & he certainly disturbs the Equanimity of Divisional Hqrs, which we

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poor P. B. I. don’t mind very much, as we think it does them good to stir them up a little. Unfortunately when they do get a shell near them they talk of nothing else for days & other things are set aside. We have got a number of these little railways they have started running all over the place, just round this camp & they go wandering about up any sort of hill & must be extraordinarily useful. In this area they must comprise an enormous mileage as they are everywhere & one wonders how they used to get along without them. I ran across some Chinese working behind the line the other day. I believe there are a lot of them about & they

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must be pretty useful, as I gather that they are counting out our various labour battalions to send the men up to the line.

Love from Jack.

Hugo Watson is at Aldershot now as an instructor at the Senior Officers School. I had thought he was in Egyp.

 

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