and then with very distended insides we go on our[36] several duties—as often as not sleeping for an hour or two—or crawling out in front among ancient Frenchmen long since deceased or shoving up barbed wire etc: Tonight I am on the last named job—I always nearly break my neck over the beastly stakes! Fritz is as quiet as a lamb today—a simile one cannot often employ when speaking of him! I hit a fellow yesterday ‘somewhere in France’—in other words he will find it very painful to sit down for a while! It was a ripping shot—I used a French Rifle which I am going to try and bring back with me. I have some unexploded shells too—but can see No: 7 going to ‘kingdom come’ when one day Daddy strikes a match on one—so I think I had better leave them alone here! It is such a magnificient evening here—not a sound—but the birds singing like mad—only now and then a shot rings out to waken one up and a trench-mortar gets to work—last named very loud and noisy, but not v: useful, like some masters I used to know at Eton! Straight behind us is ‘Wipers,’ and every 5 mins. to the tick a great ‘Uncle Sam’ comes whistling over and makes the town more of a scrap-heap than ever: the pity of it! It gives the lie to Kipling’s topping lines which I will put down simply because I love them like everything else of his: ‘I do not like my Empire’s foes nor call ’em angels—still What is the use of ’ating those whom you are paid to kill!’ Well—I could talk rot for pages about the life out here, and some day I will let myself out on paper about it. But for ‘sensation!—sport!—sport for sport’s sake’—do you remember Raffles at those lines in the play—3rd Act?—that’s what one feels when crawling[37] about at night. Every minute one is living is a year—certainly I have learned more in 2 months than 20 years! So long—you are a brick to write. All food mighty acceptable!! Love to George if you see him. Ever your affec: nephew, Oscar. P.S. The Gas has slain the strawberries—I fear. (42) June 15, ’15. 6 P.M. ... All your news so interesting—esp. of Eton—ripping you’re going down there from my point of view—I hope you saw all the old haunts—library and all—they have a very big place in my heart here—and I try and liken this game to the old House ‘Ties’—only the odds aren’t so against us here and we’ve more to back us up! I wrote to Tutor—did he tell you? I want to know all news about Eton.... Another quiet day here and another still more beautiful evening. Really it is very hard to realise that anything is doing—the country looks wonderfully pretty in spite of its ugly spots. The ruins of farms scattered over the place look quite picturesque. We had a few swells round the trench last night and they complimented the Essex on our work—oh! we are ‘some boys’! (43) 6.30 P.M. June 16, ’15.