It was raining hard, Sherriff told Pips, so the men could not work outdoors. Instead they had been divided into little groups under sergeants: ‘The Machine Gun Sergeant has his gun laid out in a barn with a group of men round him being initiated into the mysteries of “feed arm retaining lugs”, “extractor recesses”, “Bolt spring lugs” and such other interesting things.’

As he had come back to his billet to write home, the wind had died down. A bombardment was ‘rumbling away somewhere in the distance and the old Farmer says as I come in “beaucoup Bombard, bon pur l’Allemagne”.’ He noted that the French tended to pick up words from the English soldiers, and for this farmer the word in particular was “rotten”: ‘everything’s rotten – when he sees it’s raining he nods his head knowingly and says “rotten”.’

He expected to spend another 6 days or so training the recruits, but given how quickly things seemed to be moving at the front, he felt there was a possibility he might be moved earlier than  that. ‘I sincerely hope things will keep on moving as they are now and finish up things,’ he wrote, ‘every time I hear a bombardment I think “there are so many thousand shells the less to fire off”.’

He expected the grass was beginning to grow at home, and the spring flowers to appear. He hoped that Pips had received the snowdrop he had sent, and apologised that he could not send any other souvenirs, since pieces of shell, aerial darts etc were not allowed to be sent home. He was wondering how his salary was mounting up in his Deposit Fund – and he hoped that they would all be able to settle down safely soon, so that he could spend his money on all the things he wanted to get: ‘a good library of history books, some coin cases for my coins – stamps and antique furniture for my room and other things – including, I hope, a new set of civilian clothes.’

[Next letter: 13 April]