A/101 TRENCH MORTAR BATTERY, 101ST BRIGADE, B.E.F. March 2nd. My darling Mother,-- Please note address. Don't put in my battalion, if you like you can put in O.C. before the name of the battery officer commanding, as a bit of swank. This letter is a joint one to you and May. Many thanks, May dear, for the simply topping parcel; it is ripping. Thank you, Mother mine, also for the letter and the papers. The parcel had been delayed a little by going to the battalion. The Aunts also sent me a delightful parcel. I have been having a sort of little private Christmas on my own, with a letter from Win also, and two free papers from the King. At least, the Post Office gave us them, free to the B.E.F. Consequently, I am very pleased to-night. I don't want my gum boots, nor my Burberry, British warm or rug, as you know I have my Thresher and Glenny and a fleece lining, also a fur coat, a mackintosh cape, and a pair of thigh gum boots, all the last three presents from the King, or rather from Father as a taxpayer. Please thank Father very much for them. Also for the guns, which were bought out of the taxes he pays. Several people have asked me where to get candles like the ones you send me, and I tell them to see that when their father marries he marries a wife with brains, as that is the only way. Then, Mother, about the cheque: it is intended to pay for the cigarettes and my knife, fork and spoon, and such things, I would much rather you used it, as you are all practising war economy and I am living in luxury; at least, do please me by buying a new hat with it, or something as a little gift from me. I know it will not go far towards a hat, but Father will give you the rest, and then it will be from the two Alexanders. I am quite rich, I have nearly L30 in the bank, and I am intending to be absolutely extravagant and buy a gramophone, and even then I shall have a nice balance. I don't spend nearly all my pay, and I am sure I don't earn my pay, because already I have introduced economic reforms in Germany by cutting down the personnel of their Army, and so saving them expense. I wish I had seen Norman Smith in St. Omer. At present in billets we are doing little: we draw our rations and eat them, go for our letters and read them, get new clothes and wear them, take rations up to the dump for those in the trenches, and then go to bed. To-morrow is a red-letter day. We are going to have a bath. I am getting quite good at having a bath in a tin hand-basin, but to-morrow I shall soak in a great vat, which was once used for washing clothes. You will be glad to hear that we have had no single case in the brigade yet of a man sharing his clothes with anything else of the type in the dog's diary: "Bad attack of eczema, caught one."