XLV
France May 14, 1918
I'm afraid you'll be feeling that I've neglected you. Whenever I miss a mail I have the reproachful picture of the disappointed faces of you three at the early morning breakfast—so it isn't wilful neglect. I've had no time, for reasons which I can't explain. In this way of life one has to snatch the odd moments for those he loves best and to break off when the sterner obligations intrude themselves.
I'm in a beautiful part of the country at present—it must be beautiful, for it is providing us with three ducks for dinner to-night. I doubt whether you could get three all at once in Newark. Moreover, we can get all the fresh cream and butter that we like. Of course this won't last. Any morning we may wake up to find ourselves back on iron rations—bully-beef and hard tack. But while it lasts we make the most of it. The most ripping attraction to me is something that you'll scarcely credit. The willow-groves are full of nightingales. As you go back to your billets after midnight and the guns make lightning through the grill-work of the trees, you see the little brown fellows with their throats quivering, pouring out their song of love and spring. When you've crept into your sleeping-sack, you lie awake listening—thinking of another world where love and life were once so certain.