Outside my window a stretch of hedges runs down to a little brook. Ducks, geese, cocks and hens make farmyard noises from dawn till last thing at night. Above all the peace and quiet, the distant guns keep up their incessant murmur. What a variety of places are likely to shelter me before the summer is ended—woods, ditches, open fields, trenches. It’s all in the game and is romance of a sort. I’m sunburnt and hard. I feel tremendously alive. Once again all the striving and ambition of literary success has vanished. I’m only a subaltern—and far prouder to be that than a writer. I’m estimated by none but my soldiering qualities and power to show guts. We were lawyers, engineers, business-men—now we’re soldiers and inquire nothing of each other’s past. A thrush has started singing; he’s in the willows that stand by the brookside. The planes go purring overhead, but he doesn’t care. He goes on singing towards the evening sun as though his heart knew nothing but joy. He will be here singing long after we have passed upon our way. Don’t get worrying about my safety. You’re sure to be feeling nervous at the wrong times, when I’m perfectly safe. Just feel glad that I’m allowed to be here, and don’t look ahead. XLV France May 14, 1918 I’m afraid you’ll be feeling that I’ve neglected you. Whenever I miss a mail I have the reproachful picture of the disappointed faces of you three at the early morning breakfast—so it isn’t wilful neglect. I’ve had no time, for reasons which I can’t explain. In this way of life one has to snatch the odd moments for those he loves best and to break off when the sterner obligations intrude themselves. I’m in a beautiful part of the country at present—it must be beautiful, for it is providing us with three ducks for dinner to-night. I doubt whether you could get three all at once in Newark. Moreover, we can get all the fresh cream and butter that we like. Of course this won’t last. Any morning we may wake up to find ourselves back on iron rations—bully-beef and hard tack. But while it lasts we make the most of it. The most ripping attraction to me is something that you’ll scarcely credit. The willow-groves are full of nightingales. As you go back to your billets after midnight and the guns make lightning through the grill-work of the trees, you see the little brown fellows with their throats quivering, pouring out their song of love and spring. When you’ve crept into your sleeping-sack, you lie awake listening—thinking of another world where love and life were once so certain. XLVI France May 18, 1918 This is the third day that I have planned to write you. Perhaps I may be able to do so this time.