I am going to relieve him this afternoon; I shall only be in a few days. I hope to come home on leave about June 4th.
Much love to all, from your loving Son,
ALEC.
P.S.—I have not got your letter, but I have received all the letters and things sent, I think.
I am writing this in my dug-out. It seems very comfortable at present. We have one large dug-out in which Carroll slept with two machine gunners. I was going to sleep there too, and as I have a new officer, Ingle, with me he was going to sleep there. But by the greatest stroke of good fortune I spotted this one just near. It is the best dug-out I have ever had. The other dug-out is swarming with mice and rats, who scratch earth into you all the time, and come and expire on you at night. One fell down and died on the table while we were having tea. But in this I have only seen one mouse so far, and it has got about ten feet of solid earth over it. I sleep on a comfortable folding bed, in my clothes, of course. It is well back six or seven hundred yards from the firing line. The firing line is more unhealthy than other trenches we have been in. They will keep sending the oil cans I told you of over into the front line. If you manage to get away from them round a traverse they come rolling round the corner after you; I don't love them at all. I have got "Printer's Pie," and I am just going to put up some pictures and am then going to bed. I relieved Carroll, and have been messing around since. I went down to the firing line for an hour or two to go to each emplacement and see how the men who were firing the guns were getting on, and then came back and observed their fire just outside my dug-out; there is our observation post from which you can see our own lines and the Bosche lines for miles. I have just been down to one of our ammunition dug-outs, seeing 100 rounds put in that a fatigue party had brought up. Friday 10 to 12. Good-night, Mother mine.
Had a comfortable night, but, as it was rather cold, I have had my sleeping bag brought up for to-night, so I shall be all right. Fuller was late this morning, so I had to wait impatiently for my boots and puttees to be cleaned before I could get up, consequently we did not have breakfast till nearly 10-0 o'clock. After breakfast Ingle and I went round all our emplacements. We had quite an interesting time, as in one place where the trench is not occupied, and up which we have to go to one emplacement, one of our field gun batteries put four shots into the trench about 10 yards behind Ingle and knocked him over, then a rifle grenade landed nearly at my feet and kindly failed to go off. We returned in time for a late scrappy lunch at 2-30. When I was intending to have a nap and a read when one of the Northumberland Fusiliers officers, Bowkett, turned up with Kitty to see the line, as he is probably taking it over from us in a few days, and I had to wander right around all the emplacements again. After tea I went down to see how our guns were getting on and found the infantry were very pleased with them, as one gun had managed to destroy a Hun machine gun emplacement, and the others must have done considerable damage, as they so much raised the Hun's ire that he shelled them all unsuccessfully.
We had a pleasant dinner, and the rest of the evening I have spent worrying over returns, new emplacements, trench maps, &c., and so to a well-earned rest.
I am beginning to find my way about a bit now, but there is a veritable maze of nice white chalk trenches. We are in a sort of valley, and in the middle of the valley is a slight rise on which the village of La Boiselle once existed, and which now forms the German salient.