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 brin