At the present time I am billeted in a farmhouse. I sleep in their best bed-room—that is when I can go to bed at all—and they give me home-made cider, cognac, and coffee, apples, plums, etc., and lovely home-made cheese for nothing, though they need not supply any food, as the rations are served out by the regiment every day.
’Tis great fun trying to talk French to them and I am picking it up gradually. It is wonderful how words and sentences that I learned at school come back to me now, and I can generally make myself understood all right. It is an awful pity to see this beautiful country spoiled by war, and it is no wonder the people are so eager to fight for it. I don’t think there is a single house that has not sent out one or more men to fight with the French Army, and their mothers, sisters, wives, etc., are very proud of it. There are two gone out of this house.
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Letter 55.—From Private Carwardine, to the father of a comrade-in-arms:
I am very sorry, but I don’t know for sure about your Joe. You see, although he was in the same company as me, he was not in the same section. I only wish he had been. The last I saw of him was when we were in the firing line making trenches for ourselves. He was about 600 yards behind us, smoking, and I waved to him. Then all of a sudden we had to get down in our trenches, for bullets started coming over our heads, and shells dropped around us.
We were fighting twelve hours when I got one in the back from a shell. After that I knew no more until I found myself in hospital, and I asked one of our chaps how our company went on, and he told me there were only seventeen of us left out of 210. I hope Joe is among them. You will get to know in the papers in a bit when they call the roll.
So cheer up and don’t be downhearted, for if Joe is killed he has died a soldier of honour on the field. Excuse writing, as I am a bit shaky, and I hope to God Joe is safe, for both your sakes.
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