This letter gets scribbled in pieces. I’m now waiting for the afternoon parade to fall in. The gramophone is strumming out a banjo song, and in my galvanized hut it’s as hot as———. Most of the men strip off everything but their breeches and go about their horses dripping like stokers. The place isn’t so unlike Petewawa in some respects, except that there is no water. You look for miles across a landscape of sage-green and chalk, with straight French roads running without a waver from sky-line to sky-line. There’s nothing habitable in sight—only grey piles and splintered trees. But in spite of the wholesale destruction one finds beauty. You’d smile if you could see our camp—it looks like a collection of gipsy bivouacs made of lean-tos of wood with canvas and sand-bags for roofs. The rats are getting bold, and coming out of the trenches—rather a nuisance. It’s strange to be here playing football on the very ground over which not so long ago I followed the infantry within half an hour of the commencement of the attack. Our wounded chaps were crawling back, trying to drag themselves out of the Hun barrage, which was ploughing up the ground all around, and the Huns were lying like piled-up wheatsacks in their battered front line. One learns to have a very short memory and to be glad of the present. Within sight a little trench tramway runs just like the Welsh toy-railway of our childhood. It leads all the way to Blighty and New York and Kootenay. One can see the wounded coming out on it, and sometimes sees them with a little envy. X France June 23,1917 Last night Khaki Courage arrived. I found the Officers’ Mess assembled round my mail—they’d guessed what was in the package. I had intended smuggling the book away, and did actually succeed in getting it into my trench-coat pocket. A free fight ensued and, since there were four against one, I was soon conquered. Then one of them, having taken possession of the little volume, danced about our tin tabernacle reading extracts. I had planned to ride into a neighbouring city for dinner that night, but sat reading till nearly twelve. I can’t thank you all enough for your loving work. I think the proof of how well you have done it is, that my brother officers are quite uncynically keen about it. If they, who have shared the atmosphere which I have unconsciously set down in its pages, can read with eagerness and without ridicule, I think the book, as compiled by you, dear people, should stand the test.