Still living in his ‘little doll’s house’ in the support trench, Sherriff was delighted to have received a bundle of letters – 2 ‘fine long letters’ from his mother (‘the nicest and most comforting letters anyone could receive’, he told her), one from Bundy, and a parcel of cigarettes (which arrived just in time, as he had just finished the previous batch he had been sent).

He told Pips that nothing much had changed in his situation:

‘We certainly have struck a noisy quarter here, but hope it may not last very long and that we will soon have another rest….the same old routine goes on – work, hours of duty, shells and bullets day after day, day after day – a weary, monotonous kind of life which can only be relieved by philosophy’.

He had kept Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius with him throughout his time in the army, and, although he had never read them all the way through, he had read them in patches – ‘some pieces over and over again’.

Writing to his mother on the same day his thoughts turned again to the prospect of leave – he saw other officers going off, and hoped that his turn might come soon. And he was already planning what they might do:

‘The ten days would be absolutely perfect happiness, we would go just the same dear old walks and rides and sit in the same quiet old places in Hampton Court and Oxshott Woods – nearly always returning to the same old homely tea in the dining room – we would spend one day in London getting anything we want (and I would want some new clothes from Hazels). I could go and see them at the office and we could go to a matinee in London at the same time – but the majority of the time we would spend in the dear old haunts round about home – Pips could take some of his days holiday and come for some good rides with me too.’

He was sure it would be the happiest of all times, and ‘almost worth being out here 9 weary months for’.

[Next letters: 25 May]