from
the trenches, but they did not disturb us. To-day we breakfasted at
9-0 and were lectured to in the morning and afternoon by an officer,
who came out of the trenches yesterday afternoon. This evening we went
to a fairly large town near here and had tea and dinner. At tea we
found a large major leaving the cafe and vainly looking for his cap.
At length he got the services of a waitress. "I've lost my cap" ("ton
chapeau?") "Call it what you like as long as you find it." He was
rather amusing. Dinner we had in the usual French cafe I have
described before, and returned home to bed. The other man has gone to
another estaminet and so I am sleeping alone. The house is on a slight
rise, so from my window at night I can see a huge circle with lights
going up every minute here and there--star shells, they quite light up
the room, then flashes and a boom. They have just been quite bad
tempered a few miles north of us and have been making a dickens of a
row. I think it is a nuisance that ought to be stopped, it must be
quite annoying to the people round. Now they are getting distinctly
unfriendly to the south for a little. It looks like a fifth of
November show, rather long drawn-out.

Please excuse this writing, as I am lying down in bed.

Good-night, little Mother,
Your loving Son,
ALEC.

I meant to send this letter off to-day, but I have not been able to.
This morning we breakfasted at the gentlemanly hour of 9-0 off
omelettes from the estaminet, bacon (a ration), coffee, marmalade and
bread and butter. We did a little work this morning, lunched off bread
and butter and marmalade and then a lecture, and then we went into the
town for tea and dinner. They have a very nice cafe place here--a
private house. Madam's husband is a prisoner, and her husband told her
to be "gaie," so she runs a cafe and enjoys herself. We had a very
good tea; they have some very nice cakes called gauffes (I don't quite
know how to spell it), like sweet pancakes, and afterwards a bath. The
division has some baths. There is a starch factory--I think it is--and
there are some large sort of square vats in it. They are used as baths
for officers; they have three big vats, one very big, and they are as
hot as you like, and are 8 feet by 4 by 4 feet deep, and you can have
a topping bath in them--you can just swim a st