I bought this little ‘souvenir’ in the town here yesterday and one for G.M. Not a word about the bombing to his mother, who was away from home, and not to be alarmed if Oscar could help it. At Masongill, moreover, she was in his oldest and very dearest haunts; and in billets he had time to join her there in spirit[43] as he describes. The trenches may well have seemed the farther cry, that summer Sunday evening in the farm-house garden, with the ‘glorious lot of letters and parcels’ hot from home. Yet his bombing adventure was on his mind; he feared he had made too much of it, and he now went vigorously to the other extreme, incidentally assuring me that he was ‘as timorous as a cat,’ and closing the subject in a characteristic letter to us both. (60) June 29th, ’15. 7.30 P.M. My dearest Mummy & Daddy,—I gather that by the time this reaches you [you] will both be at No: 7 again. I got Land & Water and a letter from Masongill today.—Now don’t get excited at what I described to you the other day—those little parties for bomb-throwing are constantly sent out by every Company—there is not an officer practically here who hasn’t been out on one. I must have given you to understand that it was an exceptional enterprise. Not a bit of it—it was a jolly interesting one for the first time over—but as regards danger I may as well say that there is much more of that to be met with every day that we are shelled to any extent than there is in going up, so to speak, to a man’s front door bell—pulling it—and running off again—as we used to do in Pitt St:! I want you to realize that the ‘nearer you are to the enemy here the safer it is’—this sounds paradoxical—but anyone will tell you that it’s true. I don’t give you long descriptions of being under shell-fire, but believe me I would rather live 20 yards in the open[44] in front of the Bosches than experience such a bombardment, say, as we had on the 24th May. This bombing lends itself to picturesque descriptions and all that, but it is merely the thrill of being, as you say, on another man’s doorstep which counts. If the risk were any greater than sitting in the trench with bullets flying round you can be sure we should never be allowed to go out at all—as the C.O. wants every officer he has got—and the effect on the Germans of these local scraps is merely a moral one—makes them more careful and shows them that we still have our initiative—so much talked of. Very seldom do we actually attempt to destroy a certain position—machine-gun emplacement for instance—as the artillery (when they’re awake) do that for us. Well, enough for that—but please bear in mind that I’m jolly careful about myself—recklessness is not encouraged out here, and a fellow is merely considered a fool, as fool he jolly well is, if he doesn’t keep himself safe for his job, which—after all is said and done—is not to provide a shooting range but to look after his men. Amen! Here endeth the first lesson!