The following is an extract from the letter of an officer in the Army Veterinary Corps:
"The British soldier has done all right. He is a most curious creature. When he goes to war he gives away most of his badges and all distinguishing marks to the nearest girl, loses his hat and replaces it with a chauffeur's cap or a felt hat, and by not washing or shaving for a week at a time makes himself look like a tramp or a gipsy, and as unlike a soldier as can be. He then—without the slightest warning—proceeds to show that he is the finest fighting man in the world."
The dress worn in the trenches makes us think of Robinson Crusoe. The "Trench Kit" consists of a short greatcoat of goatskin, with the hair outside, woolly Balaclava caps, and sandbags filled with straw for the legs and feet.
Rifleman Roberts wrote to his wife: "We have all got nice fur coats—'Teddy Bears' we call them—and they are all right, I can tell you. I have just got a complete change of new underclothing, all swansdown, and nice thick gloves and a scarf."
The Sergeant-major of the 1st Leicestershire Regiment said in a letter: "A barber would do a roaring trade here, no one having shaved for weeks. Beards vary according to the age of the individual. Mine, for instance, is something to gaze on and remember. They are not by any means what the writer of a lady's novelette would describe as a perfect dream."
In a letter to his mother an officer wrote: "I haven't washed for six days at all, as we have only one water-bottle each day for drink and all, and I don't know how long it is since I have had a bath. To-day I had my hair cut; you would faint if you could see it. It was done by one of the battery cooks with a pair of very blunt, loose scissors, and an enormous comb with all the teeth split."
A German bullet once did a little hair-cutting. It took the cap of a soldier off his head and made a groove in his hair just like a barber's parting. All thought that the German who fired the shot was a London hairdresser.
A private of the 4th Middlesex Regiment found two pieces of scented soap in a German haversack, and got greatly chaffed for using scented soap on active service. The luxury of a bath was indulged in by a company of Berkshires at one encampment. Forty wine barrels nearly full of water were discovered, and the thirsty men were about to drink it when their officer stopped them. "Well," said one, "if it's not good enough to drink it'll do to wash in," and with one accord they stripped and jumped into the barrels!