Our officers don’t grab the best for themselves like the German brutes. The other night, in the wet and cold--and it was really cold--three of our officers turned out of a snug big bedroom in a farm to make way for four of our privates who were done up with cold and fatigue: _Pte. Watts, Cheshire Regiment_. Scented! Soap is unknown out here, but luck had it that I found a German haversack the other day. It contained, amongst numerous useless things, two sticks of shaving soap (scented). Now all the troops are chipping me for using scented soap on active service. I don’t mind--it’s soap: _Pte. Revis, 4th Middlesex Regiment_. Bottles All the Way Some of the towns we passed through suggested that there had been a battle of bottles rather than a battle of bullets. The streets were thickly strewn with bottles, champagne bottles and bottles that had contained the modest vin ordinaire. In those respects the Germans do themselves well: _Bombdr. Jamieson, Royal Artillery_. Brain and Muscle The French are fighting hard all round us with a grit and a go that will carry them through. Have you ever seen a little man fighting a great, big, hulking giant, who keeps on forcing the little man about the place until the giant tires himself, and then the little one, who has kept his wind, knocks him over? That’s how the fighting round here strikes me. We are dancing about round the big German army here, but our turn will come: _Corpl. T. Trainor_. A True Dream It is a funny thing that Harry should dream about my arm being in a sling. You can tell him it is quite true. It was my right arm, and it is in a sling, but it will soon be out again for action. I enclose you a photo of dear old “Taff,” the goat which was the mascot of the regiment. He was shot the same day as I was, but I am very sorry to say that he is dead: _Pte. Boswell, Welsh Regiment_. “Tough Nuts” Have come across some very strange soldiers, with stranger weapons and equipment. Talk about the load of a Tommy, the pack of a Turco or Senegalese is double the size, and they are tough nuts, you take it from me. The cultured army of Kaiser Bill is material for mincemeat before very long, and all I can say is, “God help the troops with which the native regiments, both African and Indian, get to grips”: _A Staff Sergeant-Major_. No Football! It is all very well to read in the papers what a chap wrote to someone in Redhill about being fifty-six hours in the trenches and arranging football matches. We were thirteen days in the trenches at one place, where we only had to stand up a minute to bring a battery of German artillery on the top of us, and for hours we had to lie still or be blown to atoms. But never mind; the sun will shine again: _Pte. Gibson, Royal Scots_. Hungry!