to our credit about seven hundred wounded men. The French are, of course, very appreciative of our work. I wish that I could describe things more fully, but I am too much "all in." I am well in spite of the excitement, but tired to death of the horrors, the smells, and the sights of war. We will be here but a few days more and after this will be given an easier place for a while; so you need not worry after receiving this. I am glad to have gotten a taste of real war, though, so as to know what it really means. Your affectionate son, MALBONE (_Birckhead_) II _August 9, 1916_ _Dear K._,-- It is quiet and cool to-night; the moon is shining just as it will with you a few hours later, for it is now 9.15 here, and only 3.15 with you. Last night it was quiet and I slept from half-past nine till seven! The night before, however, the guns roared all night long and increased in vigor up to six o'clock in the morning. We were waked up a little after five o'clock by the scream of a shell which hit somewhere back of us. The house shook amid the roar, as it always does whenever there is much firing. We are quartered in one of the farmhouses belonging to the château, which is now a hospital. You remember, no doubt, the French farmhouses: a blank wall on the roadside with only an entrance to the courtyard, a dark kitchen, a few bedrooms, and a loft with a few sheds out back. The loft is divided into two parts. We sleep up in the loft on stretchers propped up from the floor by boxes or our little army trunks. Some don't prop up their stretchers, but I find it better to elevate mine, as the rats run all over the floor and incidentally over you if your stretcher rests on the floor. The fleas seem more numerous near the floor, and there are spiders, too. I've been pretty well "bit up," but yesterday I soaked my blankets in petrol and hung them on the line in the courtyard for an airing, so I think I've left the vermin behind. I also sprayed my clothes, especially my underwear, with petrol, which doesn't make much for comfort, except in so far as the animals are baffled. We are better off than the other Sections, though, for our house is very commodious, and we have a river to swim in every day. The river is quite near by, so it is no effort to bathe.