Transcription

7. 9. 18.

My dear Mother,

Many thanks for your last letter and for others from Father & the three gals.  Also for some magazines from C & O.  The news seems very good & it is extraordinary that I see in to-night’s wire that they are to-day in the village ^ ^{into which} we used to go back from the trenches for our 3 or 4 days ^ ^rest last spring.  By the time you get this letter I expect they will be up in our old front line against the Hindenburg Line in that area.

I see that the papers are talking a lot about the capture of Lens, but I have seen no reports that we are actually in the place.  It is right down in a hollow anyhow & of no earthly use to anyone except Editors However it is a useful tag on which to hang their demonstrations.  I hope however they will not ring joybells when it is taken, as we shall promptly be kicked out, if they do.

[page]

Things are very quiet where we are & I am very much afraid that the Bosch will start retreating in which case our present comfort will be seriously compromised particularly as he is certain to blow up all his dug-outs & fill the rest with booby traps and gas before he goes back, & we shall have to live neath the canopy of heaven.  I hate that sort of life which seems to me about the worst havoc of war & it always rains under those conditions

[page]

We are out of the line at the moment & have a very comfortable headquarters in a place which has been kept constantly repaired, so that if there weren’t a few guns stuck about all round & one particularly noisy one about 200 yards off, the war might be very distant.

Love to all

Jack.