March 28/15

Dear Mother

Very many thanks for your letter yesterday and the cake which arrived today, & is much appreciated in the mess. We have had to shift our billets up closer to the firing line, as the General thought we were too far away; we are’nt nearly so comfy in these new billets, and my room is awful. I share it with Mr Fox, & they had one of our big 9 inch guns here the other day & every time it fired it shook most of the house down! My room happens to be in a very shaky corner, & there is’nt a pane of glass left in the windows, & a regular tornado blows all night round the room!

It is awfully cold nowadays with a bitter N. wind all day, & a little snow. It froze hard last night, & is quite fine today and this morning ours went all over the German lines and got fired at an awful lot. We have all got to go out tonight up to the Indian Corps, so I suppose that means we’ll be going up into the trenches fairly soon now.

Just finished tea; the cake you sent has nearly all gone; it was very crumbly for some reason or other & all fell to bits when we cut it, but it was very good all the same.

Please send me a refill for my torch as I have only one left now. The films rolled up all right but just then an order came out prohibiting all cameras, so I have sent the camera & films home to Jane; I hope they roll up all right, I registered them so they ought to. Can I also have 2 more khaki silk hankies please, as I have only 2 at present. Not much going on here; there was a lot of firing last night, heavy guns firing too, but I don’t think it meant much.

Did Bee Dudman ever hear from me; because I wrote her a long letter about a month ago; will you ask when you next write. Thank Ben for her letter, I will try and answer it tomorrow. Must end up now. Love to all

yr loving son

Ted