Dec 16/16
Dear Mother
No mail in yet, & it won’t be in till 3 or 4 days yet I hear, which will make us a whole fortnight without one. We have been very strenuous these last 4 days. We had 4 days bivouacing & battle fighting, all day & all night. A whole brigade of 4 regiments is out in training about 4 miles from here & we had to take out 500 men to do enemy to them, so you can imagine we had lots to do. However it was a very pleasant outing, but as I say very strenuous. Our first two camps were in a ripping place, by the banks of a canal, just where it leaves the Juna river, & the canal man has built a bungalow there and has made the place awfully pretty and homelike. I took some photographs there which I hope to send along next week. I enclose some herewith, not very good but I think the films were duds.
Life is still very ordinary here, & next week a great many people are off on Xmas leave. I can’t get away as the C.O. is going, & I have to stay behind; but I don’t mind very much. I am acting as 2nd in command now, being the next senior left in the rgt: to the C.O but I am still doing adjutant as well. My time as adjutant is up next March, so I may as well carry on till then. I met Col Boileau on these manoeuvres & he was extremely pleasant, as usual. Also Alec Dallas Smith whom I had’nt met since Sandhurst days; you remember him & his brother Teddy I expect at Camberley.
And also I have met one of the Metcalfes from Cordwalles, the youngest Aubrey by name. I knew he was out here but had never met him before. He is in the Indian Civil & is asst private sec: to the Viceroy & rather a nut in his way. I had seen him lots of times at the Club & he had seen me, but we never recognised each other till we were introduced. The last time I saw him was singing a duet with him at Cordwalles, & Mrs Mason drew me with my coat tails flying! You remember that picture I expect in Mr Hunt’s dining room. He asked after Dick & Jim, & we had a great Cordwalles buck.
And the coat has arrived all safe & sound, yesterday; thanks ever so much, it is most welcome, also the scarf, I am so glad to have them both. What about the new Cabinet & the peace proposals! Just in time to reject them, heaven knows what that old Juggins Asquith would have done. But the Cabinet seems a good strong one & things should go well now.
Love to all
Yr loving son
Ted
Probable canal from Juna (Yamuna)
http://india-wris.nrsc.gov.in/wrpinfo/index.php?title=Agra_Canal_JI03261
Photo of Col Boileau with dead tiger
http://www.beetlesandhuxley.com/gallery/19th-century/col-boileau-and-tiger-1880s.html
Cpt. Alexander Charles Dallas-Smith, 2nd Gurkha Rifles – died March 1942 after capture by Japanese
http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/937859/DALLAS-SMITH,%20ALEXANDER%20CHARLES
http://www.twgpp.org/information.php?id=1663550
Sir Herbert Aubrey Francis Metcalfe, 1883-1943
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Metcalfe
German peace offer, 5/12/16
http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=985
Official communications and speeches relating to peace proposals 1916-1917 (1917)
https://archive.org/details/officialcommunic00carn
Lloyd George’s memo (link on right)
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/first_world_war/stalemate_change.htm
