Letters from France | Page 8

to-morrow a few miles nearer the firing line and billet again, but we shall still be rather safer than we were in England. Well, write again as soon as possible.
Much love to all, from your loving Son, ALEC.

11TH SUFFOLKS, B.E.F., January 23rd, 1916.
My darling Mother,--
I have just received a parcel from you; I might almost say the parcel. I never remembered ever having received a parcel which caused me greater pleasure. I opened one end of it and took out each article in turn and each article was simply delightful. It was really like an unexpected Christmas, or a visit to the perfect grotto. There is only one thing, mother, that you really must not do, it is simply spoiling one as it is impossible to realise that one is supposed to be on active service, when we are billeted in extremely comfortable billets, and given all the luxuries one could possibly desire. I thought that once we left England we should have to say good-bye to comfort, but not a bit of it. I can say with perfect truth that nowhere in England were we half so comfortable, or did have half so easy a time as here. We sleep in absolute comfort and warmth, we are fed far better than in any hotel outside London, and we are given just enough exercise to keep us fit. Most people told us before we came out here that the billets were not at all comfortable, and we expected to be in any old cowshed. Our last billets were extremely comfortable and our new ones are equally so. Rotten billets are usually only given to troops who leave their billets untidy when they leave. Before we leave we are always very careful to leave ours clean and so we get good ones. Early this morning we moved our billets again and are now some 16 miles from the firing line. Continuing from where I left off in my last letter. Quite unexpectedly we had to move on Saturday night. Unfortunately practice night alarms have been very frequent lately, and so we were prepared to move quickly. Every other night last week, almost, we had practices. We were warned that we were to be ready to move on Saturday night any time after midnight, and, as a matter of fact, had two or three hours to get our things ready. We went to bed and got the word to move early this morning. We marched for about three hours and arrived here in comfort in the morning, and found we only had one very dirty and tumbledown farm for the company. Within about three hours we had cleared every barn of old straw, clothes, boots, tins, &c., put new straw in, and are now quite comfortable, the officers have a sort of sitting room again, with one bed in it, two on the bed, two on the mattress, and one on the floor, and I expect we shall be very comfortable. As we did not seem to have any food for the officers the farm people asked us if we would like some chickens. And we had soup, the typical French pot-au-feu, which they keep on the fire and put all scraps into it and which makes delicious soup, chickens, fruit salad, and cafe noire, which all French people know how to make. To-morrow we will spend in making the place like a palace. Don't send me any more cigarettes. The ones I have just received will come in very handy as I am short, but in future I can get them out here cheaper.
Much love to all, and especially to you, Mother dear.
From your loving Son, ALEC.

11TH SUFFOLKS, B.E.F., January 24th.
My darling Mother,--
To-day we were expecting to get up late, parade this morning 9-30, but, unfortunately, we were wakened at 7-0 o'clock and told to parade at 8-0 for inspection by our Corps Commander, and spent the whole morning standing still while we were inspected. It is extremely tiring to stand still for half an hour or more, more tiring than marching for hours. The rest of the day we spent cleaning up everything. Now we are sleeping in three different rooms. In here two sleep, and we all eat in another room, six feet by eight feet, three of us have our mattress on the floor and one more in a small room by himself. Most of the rooms lead out of the kitchen. In the kitchen most of the servants and a few other men hob-nob with Madame and her buxom daughter, who are Belgian refugees, and who are very agreeable and don't seem to mind us over-running the whole place, and soldiers coming in to their kitchen, where they live, in all stages of dishabile, to buy huge