is topping and is lasting for hours. The
guns are at it again--they have been busy all day. The Germans were
here once, but they are not here now. Since coming out here I have
come to be very proud of the battalion. I have seen no battalion with
their physique and few with their discipline. They sing a song about
the Suffolk boys being respected wherever they go, and I think they
are. In comparing them with other men, I have been struck, and so have
others, with how fair they are. Most of them have very fair hair,
often gold, and fair rosy cheeks. They seem a very Saxon type. I have
been wondering whether they are descendents of the Danes and Saxons,
who took refuge in the fens in Norman times, a memory of Hereward the
Wake. The fen men have always been a separate race; they must have
very little Norman blood in their veins. They have the Saxon stolidity
also. I am very glad I am not in a town battalion like the
Northumberlands and such regiments. They are not nearly so easy to
control or so well disciplined, and I am pleased to discern to-day
that our men seem much quicker in picking up new ideas, despite the
fact that they are not so educated. Well, I am afraid all this is very
boring. But, as I have suddenly developed into a writer of letters, I
must write either just what comes into my head or nothing at all. It
seems funny this long, stretching line of trenches, always busy even
in the quietest of times. By daytime guns and shells; by night, bombs,
flares, searchlights and machine guns. And a few miles behind it as we
are, perfectly safe as if there was no such thing as war, with only
the faint noises one notices, now faintly, now clearly, as the wind
varies to remind one of the struggle going on. It seems funny to lie
in a comfortable bed and watch it all through the window as on a
stage. Noises off.

Please send me big candles when you send a parcel. This one is lasting
beautifully. Yesterday (Sunday) we fired off the mortar in the
morning, and in the afternoon went into the town for dinner. I wanted
to go to a Catholic Church in the evening to see what it is like,
because, of course, there are no Protestant Churches here.

This afternoon we went to the Theatre of the Division we are attached
to. They have a cinematograph and a band, orchestra and concert party,
all composed of Tommies. They are at present in what I think must be
part of a disused factory, and it was a very good show. I went and one
of the othe