My darling Mother,—
The dates put at the top of each letter are the dates on which the letter is commenced, and, as each letter is written bit by bit, it is usually several days before it is sent off; as a rule I forget to put the date at the end on which the letter is despatched. Father said that one of my letters was heavily censored lately, but the censor was myself. I think I explained that I write my letters in a book now, and fill everything in the form of a diary and send the duplicate on to you censored by myself.
I received the parcel of socks all right, and thanked you for them in a letter written in March. Socks are always welcome to the men. I keep about 15 pairs for myself, and the men like as many as they can get. At last we have got away from the Bomb School. We moved back to our Brigade a few days ago (May 3rd) to the billet we were in before at Eperlecques, only to move off again the next day in the afternoon.
Kitty and I went into St. Omer for tea and to get our hair cut, to get mess things, fruit, &c. We started to walk about seven or eight miles on a scorchingly hot day, but fortunately managed to go almost all the way in two ambulances we commandeered.
We had a very pleasant time, and then went to the canteen and bought stuff, which our servants took away in a handcart. Then we went and had our hair cut, and I bought a new auto-strop safety razor as a birthday present to myself. After we had done everything we wanted we went down to the station to meet our batteries, who had marched in with Brigade Headquarters, and for three hours we messed about, shoving great lorries on to trucks by hand, and then while we had dinner (an omelette) in quite an English buffet, our men brewed tea in a large loading shed. And, finally, at 11-15 our men bundled into the usual trucks, labelled Hommes 32-40 Chevaux (en long) 8 (1 horse—4 men), while Kitty and I had a French second class carriage, in which we slept fitfully, and ate chocolate biscuits and oranges intermittently throughout the night.
The next morning we arrived at a station near Amiens and proceeded to unload g.s. waggons, &c., again. When that was finished we marched a mile down the road and halted for breakfast. We had ours in an estaminet—coffee, omelette, &c. After breakfast I went to the river and had a topping bathe; no weeds or anything to trouble you, only two garrulous old French soldiers, who stood on the bank and watched and gave me encouragement. At about 11-0 we set off. A blazing hot, dusty day, pushing handcarts about 12 miles, without any lunch, and arrived at St. Gratien at about 5-0. Arrived there we found Wren, the Brigade Signal Officer, absolutely at sea as to where our billets were, so we foraged round for ourselves. After being kicked out once or twice we finally settled our men and bagged a Battalion Headquarters for ourselves. The Brigade lent us blankets as our valises had been left behind with guns, ammunition, &c., for the Division to bring along.
We moved off again the next afternoon about three miles to Rehencourt, and there found a terrible muddle. A.S.C., two brigades R.F.A., our Brigade Headquarters, all trying to billet in one small village. We found a large billet marked up for our two batteries, and the machine gun company, and, while we were trying to fit in, an A.S.C. Colonel, who was town major, came bustling round looking into every barn and calculating how many they would hold. He would go into each little hencoop and chalk up about 100 men on the door, and, finally finished up by looking round for a loft for 14 officers to sleep in, in which he proposed to jumble up ten machine gun officers and four of ourselves. When he had gone we put our men in (not according to his scale). We bagged the house for ourselves and the machine gun officers went out and discovered billets for themselves.
We have a priceless little mess-room papered in yellow and white, old oak-carved chairs, oak table, shaded lamp, &c., and a bedroom with one bed in it.