My dear Father,

Many thanks for letters from C G & O. I am very glad G. got home unscathed as those beastly submarines were always on my mind. The telescope has arrived lens & all & fills the heart of the Sniping Officer with delight. I will let you know how it works & how many Bosches we bag with it, when I can. It seems in very good order. At present we are out of the line so it is lying doggo. It is a beastly day & I am very glad to be in a house, owing to Haig or someone going on leave. I shall have the Battalion on my hands again for a few days, as when he goes the Army Commander goes to the G. H. Q. & our Corps Commander to the Army, our Divl. bloke to the Corps, Brigadier to the Division, & Tringham to the Brigade. Anyhow it works somehow like this. Jo has returned

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from his school, where he appears to have enjoyed himself without overwork & to have impressed his capabilities on the commandant as the latter wanted to keep him as an instructor, but the C. O. wouldn’t hear of it, I am glad to say. The Bosch opposite was very joyful at the fall of Bucharest, & rang bells & sang ditties in honour thereof & got properly strafed in consequence. He seems to be wanting to copy our example in raids lately, but has caught a tartar once or twice lately, so perhaps his giddy ardour is subdued. I always expect to meet a Bosch in our trenches when going round at night. I heard

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of a Battalion the other day who proudly claimed the capture of a prisoner & it turned out that a miserable little Bosch about 18 years old had lost his way on patrol & had got into our lines & gone to sleep in an empty dug-out. He came afoot in the morning & was at once captured by an officer, who had no arms himself, luckily the Bosch had left his rifle in the dug out & the officer was so pleased with his capture that he wouldn’t leave him but took him all the way back to Corps Headquarters. I hear that the Roumanians are moving so fast that even the Bosch

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Bosch cavalry can’t catch them. still the Bosch must be losing a certain number of men in the process, which is all to the good, as I believe he has got his 1919 class in the depots in Germany now

Love to all

Jack.