Sherriff’s latest letter to Pips was written over two days, during which he was taking part in his favourite army pastime – route marching: ‘Marching was always my favourite part of soldiering and I am never so fond as I am of a day’s march’.

The Battalion was moving into rest, and Sherriff with it. But he had been sent on ahead as they were marching from the front, and would take some rest along the way, although no one knew for how long. He was bringing with him a report from the Doctor he had been visiting while with the transport, and he was to give it to the Battalion Doctor, with the suggestion that his neuralgia should be ‘looked into’. The Doctor had thought it might be due to the straining of his eye muscles, but Sherriff didn’t care what the cause was, just that it could be cured:

‘The trouble is that it comes on for about an hour, 2 or 3 times a day, and while it is on it makes me feel absolutely knocked up – when it is over I feel quite fit again. So directly we have settled down for the rest I shall see our own Doctor and see if I can have things seen to – teeth, eyes, nerves or whatever it may be, I should think some cure could be found.’

He sought reassurance from Pips that all was still going well with the war: ‘You probably always get the news before we do,’ he grumbled. Not the news from nearby, of course – but that was never complete – ‘we never get the facts or reasons for certain things until we get the papers afterwards’. He couldn’t share any more details because of censorship worries, so advised his father that he must be ‘content with the messages of Phillip Gibbs, Beach Thomas and such other important personages published in the last few days’ Daily Express.’

Taking up his pencil again on the second day he reported that they had enjoyed a march of about 8 miles, and had halted at a village overnight, prior to moving on again soon. The weather was ‘fine’, and the farm which served as their headquarters was full of life – ‘thousands of chicks and fowls and dogs are running about everywhere.’ [The tone of his letter already seems more relaxed than that of a few days’ earlier.]

[Next letter: 22 April]