It had been a glorious day, he told his mother – cold and frosty, but fine for walking – and he and Morris [his servant] had been out for four hours getting some exercise. As they came back, and it started to get dark, and with the sun setting and the ‘cold, sharp air’, he was reminded of ‘the walks I have had at home through the dear old parks with you and Pips…there are little scenes and incidents that you see and experience here that remind you so much of home that you can almost imagine you are there: I went along a road today that was very much like the Cromwell Road [in Hampton Wick, near his home]’.

He always took time to get used to things, and after being in his dugout for over three weeks now, he had come to regard it as home: ‘I am sure I shall have a sort of lump in my throat when I have to leave it’. He would stay in it all winter, if he could:

‘It is hard to describe exactly the pleasure one gets from being alone a certain part of the time – when I can think without interruption and draw pictures for Bundy without imagining someone catches sight of them and wonders what you are doing, where you have your servant near at hand and you can call him and have a talk with him without any other officers in the room and where you manage everything yourself and gain experience of responsibility – I feel it is a pleasure I shall miss very much when I get back to my Battalion.’

He was still wishing he had more mining or engineering experience, to give himself a chance of transferring to the RE. The RE officers seemed so interested in their work, he thought, and they had other advantages – like permanent billets and good leave. He wished that he had put in for something more useful, but instead his ‘occupation only made me fit to be an infantry officer, and I should not grumble at my lot’. Nevertheless, he was resolved to try to become more proficient at the RE work. It was almost inevitable he felt, that, working on the surface of the earth, he should prefer working above it (flying) or below it (mining) – ‘it is natural that people prefer something they have not got’. But he also envied his mother the work that she was doing: ‘I do wish I had been trained as a doctor, so that I could help in the same work as you do – it is so much better than helping to make wounds.’

He apologised for sending her letters that often sounded so miserable – it seemed poor repayment for her lovely parcels, with peaches, and cream, and mittens and socks, ‘and, well, everything you have sent me.’ Perhaps the parcel had made him homesick, for he allowed himself a brief reverie:

‘It is now half-past nine – I imagine Pips has just settled down in front of the fire; you have gone up to your bedroom I expect and Bundy is sitting reading, and Puss curled up against the fender. I hope I shall be back to all this by next year.’

He left off writing at that point, and although he resumed a little more clear-eyed next morning (‘It is very sharp and frosty this morning – but very fine – true winter has started now’), he soon lapsed into longing and reminiscence once more, as he so often did in letters to his mother:

‘Keep cheerful always, and I will try to, and let’s both look forward to the day when I shall get home again with you and Pips, Bundy, Beryl [his sister] and the parks and Oxshott and the chickens, and everything else so dearly looked forward to.’

[Next letter: 20 November]