Transcription

2. 9. 916.

(rec’ 15 9 16)

My dear Mother,

many thanks for letters from you & C. By this time you ought to have got my letter explaining my being wounded or rather bruised for it was nothing more & it was ridiculous my name going in at all.  If I had thought I would have stopped it, but when it was sent in I was sleeping the sleep of the just, as we had been having a roughish time & no sleep.  As you say you know I am in the big push I can’t contradict you and am at the moment sitting in a deep Bosch dug-out which was built for a worthy Hun & is now used by the unworthy British.  And it is a great safeguard

[page]

as of course he knows of the place & constantly strafes it & last night blew in the entrance only owing to the Bosch’s foresight he had cut a passage into another dug out & we could get aid through that if we had needed it, though we dug ourselves out with no difficulty.

We are holding trenches in a fairly well known spot & it is certainly distinctly lively. There are lots of Bosches about, as they came in in the mornings in little groups

[page]

having surrendered on the night before.  I think he is losing or has lost most of his string, as his counterattacks appear to be very half hearted affairs.  I was sorry to see that Tom Underhill has been killed

I must stop to catch the post.

Love to all

Jack.