Sunday 9th
My dear Mother
Thank you & the girls most awfully for that lovely box. It arrived most opportunely too. Thoroughly wet, tired, bored, & with no prospect of anything for dinner but bully & lo & behold that box of delicacies. We’ve been living like dukes. Too good of you to send it & it was like a conjuring trick, things never seemed to end coming out. We’ve eaten all the almonds, & that butter is lovely, & the mince pies too.
Did you have all that frost? We were sleeping in the fields then. Awfully cold but really not so terrible as it sounds. I have hopes of being home soon. Perhaps for Christmas but anyhow we have no interest till 15th so I hear. I enclose a cheque for £60 & Cox will change it.
Best love to all
Yr loving son
Richard
My mother says that Richard was back in France when this was written, and that Topher wasn’t with Richard by this time. “We” are Richard and his fellow officers, not Richard and Topher.