The may is out in blossom and the whole country is nice and green, bar the mess which the fighting makes. Yesterday we went to the Asylum, where British officers get hot baths twice a week; and very welcome they are too. The Asylum has been made into a sort of Bath Club, and one meets one’s pals there, other than the lunatics, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for giving up washing _pro tem_. Tom lent me a horse and I rode over to see his brother, who has been in the trenches some months now and was having a week’s rest. But when I was there his crowd was suddenly warned for duty again, to put right a mistake on the part of some of our Allies, against whom the Huns had been using stinks,—a low game. Charlie was very fit and is the only surviving original officer of his company. I have just been inoculated with the Tetanus stuff, as I got a finger busted up. Leastwise the Pill-man says that’s why, but I think he is only being Frightful. I had two shell-hits in my wing yesterday, which cost H.M. Government about 2_s._ 3_d._ each to mend, but the Boches fired over £100 worth at us, so we are up on that deal. I think I’ll go and worry the Adjutant and see if I can’t get a little commission, or an invitation to dinner at the Headquarters mess. * * * * * Archie has got a new gun which is amusing him like a new toy. I hope he will never learn to use it properly, as it is a big one, and the black smoke of its projectiles smells horrid, and is neither ‘grateful nor comforting’ like the cocoa you sent me. The Hun stink-gases are beastly things, but at present fairly useful. A dirty trick, but not a bad one if you have no morals. Sorry I can’t give you any news, as we hear very little and are not allowed to talk of what we see for ourselves. Most of what we read in the papers, and about which we have any knowledge, is wrong, so we’re all in the same boat.