He had spent Friday night with a working party digging a trench in No Man’s Land, not far from the enemy. Writing to Pips later on the Saturday, he told him that it had been ‘rather an unpleasant job’, which he had been glad to finish.

A Working Party packing up their shovels. From Memories of Active Service, facing page 275. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/3/9/3/4)

They had left at 5:00 in the evening and had driven half way in ‘Motor Buses’. It had been rather extraordinary, he wrote, ‘rushing through the ruined country’ in them. They had eventually arrived at a ruined village, where they entered a communication trench which they followed the rest of the way. They had worked there for several hours, only returning to their base at 3:00 in the morning.

[In his later memoir he recalled the vehicles as trucks, but, since there was no reason for him to have mistaken them when he wrote his letter, his later recollection was most likely faulty. In fact, ‘Motor buses‘ were often used to transport troops in France.]

It had now turned into such a lovely day that, in the afternoon, he was planning a walk into a neighbouring village to get a hot bath. Later on, ‘if I can get out, I will go for a tramp along one of the neighbouring roads and try and imagine it is Bushy Park and I am with you. I will take Turners peppermints with me and munch them going along.’

He told his father, as he had before, that he could not, in his letters ‘touch on matters of military importance as it is a very serious offence if it was discovered that you were giving information even of the most innocent kind, aparently.’ Nevertheless, he could tell his father not to listen to Harrison [someone from the office who had joined up], because ‘what [he] tells you is wrong, or, at least, it is at present.’[Quite what he was so wrong about we unfortunately don’t know.]

[Next letters: 22 October]