France, No 410610 C Coy. Undated

Dear Mother

It has been about a fortnight now since I was able to write to you but can do so now. I have just completed another week on the firing line and have emerged safely so far. This place is fairly quiet compared to Pozieres on the Somme. There is not a tenth part of the shellfire to put up with although the Germans use a great deal of bombs and minewerfers and rifle grenades which are not very nice when they start.

Our spell in the trenches was a wet one and we had to wade knee deep most of the time to our posts through slush and sticky mud. Harold and I were on the one post at a spot quite close to the German line about (censored) off and we used to hear them talking and hammering away at the dugout building. One night a German patrol marched past near us and our lads threw bombs galore at them and we got one prisoner who made a mistake and jumped into our trench.

Another night we got word that a patrol with a machine gun had got behind us somehow or other in the dark and I can tell you it was jumpy work watching the front and rear and one side all at once, expecting to be attacked. It turned out to be in incorrect report however and we all had a good laugh to relieve our nerves a bit.

The British are boss of the air here too as on the Somme and everywhere close and it is marvellous to see the risks our airmen take with apparent indifference to shrapnel from the anti-aircraft guns of the enemy. I have seen our aeroplanes hovering over the German lines while the Germans have fired away the equal in cost to about two aeroplanes and then not hit our men. They are marvellous the way they can manoeuvre , they volplane down then shoot up, turn to right and left, go round in circles all at once to keep the Germans from getting the range.

One night at Pozieres one of our fighting planes shot down suddenly and followed a German trench for a couple of hundred yards and shot at the occupants of the trench with his machine gun. They do the cheekiest things imaginable.

(This Back page appears to fit. Further search among documents in other places could ascertain if such pages exist and then added to complete this Letter.)

We have had three slight falls of snow and one heavy fall so far and the snow has been lying about for a week now and the mud and the water is all frozen. It is better frozen I think as it is not so muddy then and I can stand the cold all right so far. We are in a fairly excellent billet this time- a back kitchen of a French farmhouse with an open fireplace. We have managed a fire every night since being here which makes it a bit more cheerful.

I don’t know if I mentioned about my having met Ken Martin. He is in the very 18th and seems to be a decent chap. He was in England? when his brother died and sat with him. We celebrated our meeting by eating a tin of pears. I have seen him since then about a fortnight ago and he should be all right for another month to come.

Your parcel has not arrived yet and I am beginning to fear that it went down in the Arabic. I also had a parcel from Lucia and want you to thank her for it in case my letter does not reach. Be sure to avail yourself of my little present to you as I will be disappointed if you don’t. How is the place progressing. I hope it will be a success and I wish I was there to give a hand.

Well I will close now with best of love to all from your affectionate son

Walter (probably 1917)