en kept out in India and
away from you for over two years! The weather is improving here and
getting more springlike. What are the Germans going to do now?...

_February 21st, 1915._

I was very glad to hear from you yesterday, when two of your letters
arrived together. Of course we had been done by these German
submarines; so evidently the authorities thought it wiser not to run
the Folkestone boats all through the day, for fear of giving the
Germans an opportunity of sinking them! I fancy at night you are as
likely as not to run over a submarine. In the same way I make no doubt
that many of the German ones have been run down and sunk on the quiet.
We go into the trenches again to-night, worse luck! My leave was
refused on the ground that the General was not giving anyone a second
leave, but the Staff captain added that it was only a matter of a few
weeks' delay, when he would probably grant it if he could. I have been
over to my transport lines on horseback this morning. I have to keep
my eye on some 60 horses and mules who mostly stand out in muddy
fields; but as they are very well fed and not overworked at present,
there is nothing much wrong with them, excepting that their thick
woolly coats gather vermin a little. I have had broken bricks and
cinders put down for them to stand on, and thus lifted them out of the
mud. I was over yesterday getting my hair cut, when I met Mr. Sherlock
out for a walk, and as I was obliged to wait for an hour or so, I had
tea with him. He told me that my name was mentioned in French's
despatches. Well, that is quite pleasant, and I hope next time some of
my officers will join me. Do you remember a Col. Gough in Dublin about
the time we were married? Well, he is Brigadier-General on the Staff
now, and yesterday went down to our lines of trenches. He was shot
through the groin, and I am afraid has been very badly wounded. The
enemy proceeded to shell E---- yesterday whilst I was there. Their gun
must have been 5 miles from it. The first shot knocked a big tree down
in a timber yard, of all places, but did no further damage. The second
one went over my head, fell in a soft place, and exploded its energy
in nothing. Then I left E----. Monson, my old servant, has joined me,
looking more like a cross between an owl and a stork than ever!...

IN TRENCHES.