He told Pips that he had heard nothing for sure yet, but he feared that he and the rest of the East Surrey party might be relieved at any time.  He was sufficiently saddened at the prospect of saying goodbye to the RE officers he had met (‘who have been so nice to us…’) that he had spent two successive nights on duty at the mine so he could be with them. He may have been saddened as well by not having had any letters for the past three days, because it was rather a long way to send a man every day [the Battalion was no longer in the front line, having been relieved by the 8/Queens on 30 November, but instead was in Brigade Reserve in Philosophe].

He hoped that Pips was still able to keep the garden and the chickens in hand, and sighed that he could ‘imagine the dear old garden exactly as it must look now, with the frost on the lawn and the black looking trees and everything looking just like Christmas.’ He also returned to the subject of his father’s war bonus, commenting that ‘I suppose you are practically clear of debt now, which must be a nice feeling’.

An advert for Maconochie’s delicious stew.

For his own part, he had nothing new to report: ‘I am sorry I cannot put [in] any amusing incidents as I am still rather depressed at leaving this home we have here.’ Instead, he briefly rehearsed their daily menu – bacon & eggs in the morning, Maconochie’s at lunch (‘a tinned ration of meat, potatoes, beans, carrot etc [which] is very good – you just heat the tin up in hot water…and you have a fine stew all ready’), tea and bread and jam for tea, and a piece of steak for supper. As for entertainment – that was restricted to reading and writing, and taking the occasional walk about the trenches, which was what he was just about to do, to try to warm his feet up!

He knew not to hope for leave anytime soon – he still had another 24 days to go before his first 90 days were up – but at least that would mean that quarter of the year had gone by. It was frustrating not to know how long the war might last, but he had ‘made a chart of the days in one year – each day I carefully black in when it is done – one way of watching these beastly days of war go by’ [shades of Trotter in Journey’s End].

[Next letter: 3 December]