After an absence of a few days, while halted after another day’s march on the way back to the front lines, Sherriff finally picked up his pencil again:

‘Another long march today has brought us many miles from anywhere I have yet been to over here – the weather is perfectly fine still, and it is making a wonderful difference to the country. The roads, of course, are extremely dusty and it makes marching very trying for the men, though it is excellent training.’

Extract from the 9th East Surreys Battalion Diary (http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk)

He had risen at 3:00am, for they had elected to start early that morning, in anticipation of a hot day ahead, and had made ‘many miles before the sun became troublesome’, after which they had rested for a few hours. For his part, he was very happy to be marching (although not in the direction they were travelling):

‘I am always very glad to get some marching as I was always fond of it, and you see so many interesting towns and things on the way – the people alter as the towns do and, although cobbles are hard to march on and flat country is uninteresting unless there are towns, there is plenty to keep your attention occupied.’

He had discovered, from a recent letter by Pips, that they were both now reading Mr Britling Sees it Through [written by H G Wells, and published the previous September], a book which he was half-way through, and enjoying, hoping that it would prove to be ‘one of the few good war books published.’ Perhaps reading the book had made him yearn for home, for he often wondered how things were there – his 7 1/2 months in France had been a long stretch and he hoped that he might be allowed home on leave soon. In the meantime, he would just have to cling to his philosophy texts:

‘One can never tell what is going to happen next here, and Philosophy is absolutely the one;y comfort obtainable in the trying times which are bound to occur frequently…’

[Next letters: 13 May]