Transcription
8th Queens
B. E. F.
18. 6. 1916.
My dear Mother,
It’s a simply perfect day & one can do nothing but bask in the sun, especially as the proprietor of the farm is doing some gruesome work outside the window with a long pole which with which the result of his labours being a sticky liquid which a satellite is pumping into a barrel and a most appalling stench. One is not even safe in one’s tent, as other menials are distributing the stuff over the ground in ladles and they appear to like their job though why they don’t expire on the spot I can’t imagine.
The aeroplanes are very active again & they dropped two anti-aircraft shells in our camp this morning without doing any harm except to one man who at once got shellshock. Really the things are quite small & he didn’t mind some really big things which were coming over 2 or 3 hundred yards off earlier on & were making a most infernal din. As a matter of fact I thought at the time that the old Bosch had lengthened his range & got on to the farm – and if he had, he would have
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done some damage. We were hauled out at 12.30 a. m this morning on a false alarm of gas – most unwillingly as everything was absolutely quiet & it was obviously a case of cold feet in some sentry’s part probably miles off, but we had to stand about for half an hour before going to bed & of course all the gunners were equally annoyed & set to work to strafe the Hun with the result that it tended to spoil one’s sleep. However I don’t suppose I lost more than a minute or two, as guns cease to trouble after a little practise. Unless they are actually firing over your head when they are a trifle noisy.
Here comes the gentleman with the tub again, so I must be off
Love to all
Jack.
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