‘I am lying in a tent on a very hot afternoon,’ wrote Sherriff to his father, ‘having just moved our camp for the third time in three days. Camp life is healthier and airier than billets – and provided we are not crowded one is quite comfortable with a valise spread out on the grass.’

After a fortnight in the support trench, they had left three days before, moving first to one camp, then to another a day later. The latter had proven too dusty, however, so the following day they had moved the 600 yards or so to a more pleasant situation in a field:

‘It is rather wonderful that a whole Battalion can move in the course of a few hours – men, baggage and tents: we left a place at 7 o’clock in the evening, marched 3 miles and were under canvas again at 11 o’clock the same night’.

At present the whole Battalion had been ‘lent’ to the RE for a few days, and earlier that day he had taken a party of men out to lay water pipes. ‘I should like that kind of job to last for “duration” – laying pipes or wires and digging drainage a fairly safe distance behind the line,’ he told Pips. Of course, there was still the possibility of being hit by a stray long-range shell, or by a bomb from an aeroplane – but it was still better than ‘stuffy trench life’. In fact they had just had a German aeroplane overhead, and had watched as it was followed by puffs of smoke from British guns and aeroplanes – ‘but then you get that too – don’t you?’ he asked.

A German aeroplane overhead. From Memories of Active Service, Vol I, facing page 173 (By permission of the Surrey History Centre, Ref: 2332/3/9/3/2)

He had no idea how long they would remain out of the line in their present role, nor had he heard anything more about the possibility of leave. He hoped that it might come in time for him to return to England and share at least a part of Pip’s holiday, although he urged Pips not to make any plans based on the possibility of his return:

‘It is all a matter of chance – and usually they say leave comes when you are not expecting it – so I must try not to expect it – that’s all’.

[Next letters: 3 June]