19 December 1915 – To Gladys

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Transcription

8th Queens.
B.E. F.
19.12. 1915.

My dear G.

Many thanks for your letter of the 7th. November which I got yesterday I suppose this is the last letter you will get from me before you sail for home sweet home & 5 months 10 days without Bill.

I had a week at home at the beginning of the month & should be getting my next about the time you are due to arrive, so you must let them know at home when you sail, so that I can time my arrival with your own. We have been back behind the line now for nearly a month & I think they are going to let us stay here till after Xmas when we shall move up to face the Bosch again – only in a different place. I heard this morning that they had loosed off a lot of gas in the very spot we are going to, but for some reason or other didn’t follow it up with an attack, so nothing happened & no one minded. Still if they gas us now, they may do so again. We were practicing in a gas trench the other day & it is extraordinary how the gas helmets protect you – & it was not a fake as they gassed one man pretty badly whose helmet was not working right.

I am in a very comfortable billet here with a feather bed & a large sitting room with an open fire & two very nice old ladies to look after me. The only thing is that there is no bath & the sanitary arrangements are to say the least Nigerian. I also notice that the household pump leads direct into the household cesspool, so I drink beer.

As you have heard I expect, we have got a new C. O. from our 2nd. Battn. Still under the War Office rules, anyone who acts as C. O. for more than 30 days, gets made a temporary Lt. Col. & reverts when a new C. O. arrives, so for 5 blissful days you had a brother who was a Lt. Colonel & didn’t know it – poor girl what you missed.

Love to the incubus

Jack.

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