Letters from France | Page 4

knocking.
Brown puts his head out of the window. "For the love of Heaven, come
and show us our billets." B and D Companies have just arrived a day
later than us and their guide is deficient in common sense. We are quite
old soldiers now and past such excitement; we could billet ourselves in

China if necessary. However, Brown goes to help. To-day we rose
early and breakfasted at 10-0 off bacon and eggs (fried by me), bread
and jam. We have a company orderly officer, and it is my turn to-day,
so I had to get up and put trousers, coat and boots over my pyjamas and
to mount a guard at 8 a.m. and to dress properly afterwards. We have
cold baths out of a hand basin and shave. One is very particular about
shaving and all small details. The men have to be kept as smart as
possible, and it is laid down that shaving is most important. If left to
themselves they soon grow long beards, long hair and dirty clothes. All
the morning we spent in cleaning up. We swept out the yard. They
hardly know themselves now. The farm has never been so clean before.
We built an incinerator to burn all our rubbish; we organised a
Company Store, a cobbler's shop, and we have a qualified cobbler to do
all our repairs. We organised our rations, and collected remains to make
stews for the men. Constructed scrapers for boots outside each barn to
keep them clean. At about 12-0 a.m. the doctor and C.O. came round
with me and inspected our billets and praised them as the cleanest and
best organised in the Battalion.
This afternoon ammunition drill, &c., to smarten the men up. At 4-30 I
mounted our guard. Each lot of billets has its own guard; and we mount
them with all the pomp and ceremony a guard should have, so that our
guard mounting is really as impressive as that at Buckingham Palace,
and it keeps the men smart. Tea time, visitors from other companies;
afterwards the others go shopping. I am cook and mess president of our
little lot, and I give them a housekeeping list of what to purchase. Then
having nothing else to do I sit down and write the largest and most
drivelling letter I have ever written in my life, I call it No. 35. The next
ought to be No. 135. Please tell me if it is too long. If it bores you,
censor it and pass it on. I hope it does not; tell me if it does. Now:--
Cigarettes. Please give someone an order to send me 150 cigarettes a
week. I will send you a cheque for them any time. They may be either
Matinee, Abdulla No. 5 or No. 4. Sullivan, Savoy, Nestor, Pera, or any
similar brand. They might send vain attempts, but please get them to
send them regularly then and I will send a cheque. Letters will be very
welcome. Please give my love to all, and thank May again for her

cigarette case, it is awfully useful and much admired. Please ask her to
excuse a letter. Give Amy my love and thank her for her letter I
received a little time ago. Also, if you could let Auntie Effie see this bit,
or tell her I will try and write, I should be very pleased. I am very
happy, as you may gather, and it is the first real holiday I have had for
14 months. We have a theory out here similar to Miss ----to wit, that
there is no war. We have come to the conclusion that the whole thing is
engineered by Heath Robinson, Horatio Bottomley and the Archbishop
of Canterbury. Heath Robinson because he thinks humour is decadent,
Horatio Bottomley to advertise "John Bull," and the Archbishop to
cause a religious revival. How it is worked is as follows:--Heath
Robinson bought a chateau in Flanders and a Crimean war gun. Then
Churchill and the Kaiser came into the show. They bring troops up to
within 20 miles of Heath Robinson, who fires off his gun every half
hour. The troops are quite happy; if anyone grumbles they are sent up
to the trenches, where George Graves and Sarah Bernhardt let off
crackers. The battalion snipers are put in the opposite trench and told to
snipe the trench opposite them. Occasionally they hit a man, and then
there is a casualty list, and some General gets sent home in disgrace.
Gallipoli is another chateau near here.
If you came out in pith helmets the corporation sand cart spreads sand
in front of you, and you are supposed to be in Egypt. To accomplish
The Great Practical Joke, Troops are trained to exercise their