Letters From the Front

Dated:

As you see from my new address I am the O.C. now of a battery, composed of four guns, another officer under me, and twenty-four N.C.O.'s and men. We are quite a separate unit, being under instructions from the 6th Brigade. There are two batteries to each brigade. I am afraid a very severe censor will not permit me to tell you much about these guns. They are quite a new thing and most effective-Stokes Guns to wit. We were organized at the beginning of April, and as I run my own orderly room and am my own 'boss,' it appeals to me very much, having had to organize it myself and make things run properly, which has been more interesting than a platoon commander's duties.
I was through the St. Eloi 'scrap' with the 28th, as the battery had not been authorized then. I think it is described pretty fairly in 'Canada,' and no doubt you have read all about it.
Before I forget it, Jones was hit by shrapnel, not by a sniper's bullet. He was trying to connect up with the 31st Battalion on the left when he got hit. He was killed instantaneously. Things are a little quieter around here now, although the Boches have a most annoying habit of sniping at parties of two men, or even if one exposes oneself, with a 'coal box,' and the worst of it is they are so diabolically accurate.
I often wonder when this business is all over and all the Germans are killed, what it will be like working away on B.C.'s, S.C.'s, and all the other C.'s again. I shall certainly appreciate working in a place where one has not always to be anticipating evil-minded people trying to drop bombs on you or blowing you up with a mine, or sniping at you if you show your head above the counter.
There is a 'bon mot' going its round through the trenches at present. It used to be 'Berlin or Bust,' and now it is 'Blighty or Nearer My God to Thee.'
A very generous minded Boche came over to our trenches just before the mix-up at St. Eloi to tell us that they were going to attack. He was very obliging, but he wasn't obliging enough in time for us to be fully ready, although of course we are always ready for 'em.
I am in the pink of condition myself, although I have great difficulty in keeping cool in this weather. It has been most oppressively hot the last two weeks, although that does not seem to interfere with the 'scrapping' going on.
I am just off to the trenches for eight days.