I'm not going to risk giving away military information by telling you any more now. It will all be over, and Cut-Throat Alley will be behind us when next I write. And, understand, you are not to worry in the least bit about me, because I promise you I'll get through. I should know if I were not going to; at least, I think I should. But I feel perfectly certain we shall bring this thing off all right anyhow; and so, even if I did chance to go down, you wouldn't grieve about that, would you? because you'd know that's the way any fellow would like to go down, with his Company bringing it off; and, mind you, a thing that's going to make a world of difference to all the hundreds of good chaps who will hold this sector of the front before the war's over. We've got a mighty lot to wipe out in this little push. It isn't only such scraps of discomfort as we suffered, nor yet the few men we lost there. But, French and British, month in and month out, for many a long day and night, we've been using up good men and true in that bloody, shell-torn corner. Why, there's not a yard of its churned-up soil that French and English men haven't suffered on. We've all that to wipe out; all that, and a deal more that I can't tell you about. I'll only tell you that I mean to get through it all right. Every man in the Battalion means real business--just as much as any of the chaps who fought under Nelson and Wellington, believe me. So, whatever you do, be under no sort of anxiety about your "_Temporary Gentleman_." P.S.--Seeing that you and I, and all our lot, never have known anything about military matters before this war came, I think it may interest you, as it interests me, to know that I have never seen the Company as a whole jollier, or in higher spirits than it is with this job before it; and, do you know, I never felt happier myself, never. I feel this makes it worth while to be alive and fit; more worth while than it ever was in civil life before the war. FRONT LINE TO HOSPITAL Perhaps this address will be quite a shock to you if you know what it means. So I hasten to say that I am perfectly all right, really. "Clearing Station"--perhaps that won't have the ominous look to you that "Hospital" would, though it means the same thing. But the point is, I am all right. I told you I'd get through, and I have. The fact that I'm lying in bed here--in luxurious comfort--is only an incident. I am quite safe and perfectly all right. They tell me here that directly an officer is wounded information to that effect is sent home to his people. Well, I hope you will get this word from me first, and accept my assurance that there's nothing to worry about. These good folk here will put me as right as ninepence in no time, and I hope very shortly to be back with the Company and in the new line.