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My dear Glad,
Many thanks for yours – also for others from mother C & O. I hope someone has been able to find a suitable offering for Rosamond, as I have not the slightest idea what form it should take. We are in the line & wishing for the real spring, as the weather is very nearly quite respectable but it persists in snowing at odd intervals & the melting operations entail a slushy state in the trenches. The Bosch seems to want to be inactive but our people behind insist on strafing, so we get it back in a minor degree. He is also very nervy and flares up for nothing whatever. Unfortunately he seems to know exactly where our mess is & where my own little bed is hidden & drops whizz bangs nearby in a most disconcerting manner. Luckily I don’t mind how many whizz bangs he puts over as my roof is impregnable to whizz bangs & I am only praying that the whizz bang man doesn’t go & dine with anyone connected with the 5.9’s or they may like to have a go & we shall have to emigrate. Weve been trying to collar a Bosch the last few days to add to the collection & there is a small party out hunting one now but I don’t know if they will have any luck as there is lots of moon.
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The C. O. is still away and won’t be back for several days. A kitten has adopted us at the moment & is walking about this letter as I write. He or she insists on sitting down on the page & blotted the last most successfully. It is now playing with a whiskey bottle cork on our snow white napery or (to be truthful) dingy grey tablecloth which may or may not have been white once. I must introduce it to the puppy, if the latter is old enough, but I have not seen it since I came back. I have nothing to talk about except military matters, which are taboo & I haven’t been half a mile from the trenches since I came out so I haven’t come into contact with civilian affairs.
I hear they have taken to shelling the area where we go back to rest, so I suppose we shall now have to sleep in cellars there & they used to have beautiful beds & sheets. I hear the Brigade have to share a cellar with 3 female proprietresses of their billet, the latter decently curtained off but the padre’s modesty is shocked as he has to pass through their billet bedroom to get to his own. I hear the Hun hunters are
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on their way in so must cease. They have been out for an hour or more, but I have heard no signs of trouble & assume they have had no luck.
Love to all
Jack.