It had begun to get chilly, and Sherriff told his mother that he and Gibson were thinking about buying a stove – but they were concerned that, if they were transferred away in the near future, it could turn out to be a waste of money. He hoped, though, that they would stay a while longer, notwithstanding ‘the inconvenience of being occasionally shelled’. He told her, as he had Pips the day before, that he found the Engineers’ work fascinating, and he was going to try to learn more about it by following the RE officers: ‘I am always on the lookout for some branch of the service that would not be such a strain as the Infantry work is’. He was perfectly willing to work hard, for anything would be better than the ‘waiting and waiting that characterises the Infantryman’s work – nothing can be more arduous than that.’
He was still suffering a bit from the cold he had contracted, but his spirits had been buoyed a little by a parcel from his mother, the main item in which was his burberry coat. He was sorry to ask for it, because he knew his mother had been wearing it, but it was much more suitable than his trench coat, which had proved ‘quite useless’. He was going to send the trench coat back to the shop, and see if he could have them replace it with a mackintosh for his mother.
He told her that the crispness of the air, and the ‘yellowness of the sun’ had brought back memories of the previous year, when he had just started training with the Artists Rifles [he had joined up on 20 November 1915]:
‘It reminded me of those mornings when I used to travel up by train every morning to train in Regents Park – how I would like to start and [have] all that lovely time over again. Do you remember how little things – like a drunk man, or having my name taken – used to worry me? If I could only have those ten months with the Artists over again how glad I should be.’
[Next letter: 17 November]
