Letters to Helen | Page 4

appearing from nowhere.
Our quick bolt up here has had several pleasant results. First, the country is very beautiful, more hilly in this immediate neighbourhood, with great plains stretching away on all sides. The low hills all have woods round them, and a windmill or a church on the top. Second, B Squadron have already arrived, and our old Brigade-Major and lots of other old friends. It was most joyous meeting them all again. We came trotting down one road, covered with dust, and they came trotting down another road even more covered with dust, having trekked all day.
Isn't it funny. One gets so quickly used to things that already we have ceased to notice the smells, which at first made us wield bottles of disinfectant wherever we went. But now, when the farms and outhouses and other places where we live smell, we merely laugh, and "fatigues" are all at work automatically before nightfall, and by next morning--well, the smells have not gone, but the general feeling is that a good start has been made.
The water problem is still unsolved, and we get very thirsty; but thirst is a small fleabite, after all. "Which would you rather have," I asked a discontented lance-corporal, "a bit of a thirst or a dentist drilling a hole down a pet nerve?" And he owned he'd rather have a thirst. You know, it's most awkward. They come to you when there's any difficulty and seem to think you can put things right always. For instance, a man came up the other day: "Please, sir, I've lost my haversack." "When did you miss it first?" "Between ---- and ----, sir." "Now what do you want me to do?" "I don't know, sir." "Do you want me to go back to ---- and search the whole of the twenty odd miles to ---- on the off chance of finding it?" "No, sir." "Do you want to do so yourself?" "No, sir." "And even if I ordered you to go, do you think that, with so many troops about, you would be likely to find it still there?" "No, sir."
The result is, of course, that I have to buy one for the unfortunate lad in the nearest town. One must eat. And our haversacks are our larders. Haversacks are supplied by the army, but it takes such a time to get anything, that, if the matter is urgent, it has to be done without the army. We (the bloomin' orficers) have a "mess-cart" for all our absurd wines and tinned peaches and things, but the men often have nothing but the contents of their haversacks.
_June 25._
[Sidenote: READY FOR THE PUSH]
We are in a funny state of waiting for something to happen. Rumours flying about all the time. We live on them--a bite off one, a slice off another, a merry-thought off another. And so we learn the news of the world. Papers when we get a chance of going into some town, and then only two days old, or else French, which are very scrappy. Often we get no news at all for three or four days, except what some passing ambulance will vouchsafe. And usually they don't really know much. So when there's an extra heavy strafing or an extra quiet lull we learn that the entire German staff has been captured, or Rheims evacuated, or Holland sunk, or something else equally strange. The M.G.'s were hammering away furiously last night, and the whole line was lovely with star shells hanging like arc lights in the air, and then dropping slowly to earth. They light up everything like immense moons.
_June 28._
Starting from the farm where the horses are hidden at nine o'clock last night (twenty-one, as we call it out here), after a hot meal, we marched through Bedfordshire-like country, along ascending paths, to the bottom of a wooded hill where a motor lorry with picks and shovels met us. Thence along a narrow muddy path through a wood. The path circles round the hill. The east side of the hill faces the Boche front line. It was still quite light. The undergrowth thick and dank. Our fellows very merry. The Boches know this path, which is pitted with shell holes. They shell the place by day, oddly enough, but hardly ever by night.
It was raining gently. Turtle-doves continually crossed our way. I felt much intrigued. A very weird wood. The guns crashed lethargically, intermittently.
When we got round to the east side of the hill, the R.E.'s, who were acting as guides, comforters, and friends, showed us what we were to do: to dig a line of trench 6 feet deep, and as narrow as might be, for some cables that were to lead into a very important set of dug-outs for certain pink and gold