Flanders
August 10th 1916
My dear Harry,
Thank you for your long letter of the sixth. We are just been treated to a few shells. What on earth they are I don’t know. They seem to be coming straight for us. Fortunately all in our district are duds. They shake our dug-out each time all the same. A shaking is nothing. A scattering is unpleasant though. Although shells are off some distance they make a noise as though they were very close. I don’t know what the noise is like when they are very close & I don’t want to particularly. It was very exciting running for dinner – which by the way was machonochie’s, pork, beans, (all tinned) & rice & jam – with shells shaking us up all the time. But for this it has been quite quiet. Being in the supports we have to censored three words but it is not too bad. Today is the first day we have had rain – only a little shower at that – for weeks. I am glad you are so near home Mother will realise how close you are now she knows the fare & go to see you I hope. It seemed very strange to write to you at a different address from Kenilworth Road but it seems still more so now we have to change it from Dublin to Worcester. I hope all the worries of house-hunting & furniture moving will be a thing of the past by the time you have this letter. Oh! the articles in your parcel lasted quite as longer as parcels in the trenches lasted. I can tell you. The butter was in evidence for a very long time. I understand from a Worcester fellow that there is a Cathedral & a splendid river for boating at Worcester. I should think there was plenty of freshwater fishing there also. If there is any fishing you bet I shall be there at the first opportunity although the South of the Wye is my spot. With regard to the commission I applied as all the others did although I do not really mind one way or the other. My previous letter will have explained the iron bars, and you must ask Mother to tell you all about it. I hope you will still have some good weather so that you can trot round about the country. If you don’t do so soon after your arrival the chances are that you never will. Bernard wrote me a letter last week and I had to write to him very strongly on the matter. He gave me all sorts of advice about gas and steel helmets, whereas I was out first & in the trenches. My pals Dickson & Rogers (from Cardiff) consider my indignation justifiable. Bernard is quite happy once again as he can spend money. Rogers by the way has been made a sergeant. He is permanently orderly sergeant and is not envied to a great extent. Our last rest was quite good. We all had a Sunday off & several of us were able to go a couple of miles & have a bathe in a lovely river on three or four occasions. There was a pontoon at the side of the river & it was ideal for diving & coming out without having mud all over your feet. It was very deep & the current was remarkably slow. The camp we were at (we were there once before) has advantages & disadvantages. It is some distance from our trenches & where we had to censored two words but there are splendid canteens quite close & a fair sized town not far away, the other side of which has the river running through it. When there we don’t like the time spent in getting to the digging place, which is nearly as long as the time we are working. The very last digging “stunt” was a corker & we all worked with bare backs, with the result that several fellows had a slight attack of sunstroke & a lecture from the M.O. Against advice to contrary. They have gone to hospital. I took my shirt off but missed sunstroke, lecture & hospital. I suppose bathing in the river had put my back all right. The “stunt” I was on took place every morning fortunately & I managed to return to the camp on a lorrie on three occasions which meant an extra couple of hours to myself at least. I thought “My Son Richard” very good & am now reading “Aunt Jane & Uncle James.”
Time has flown so quickly on my pencil so slowly that I must close at once to catch the post. I hope to write to Ethel tomorrow unless the fatigue I am now on finishes earlier than I expect, when I can write today.
Yours as ever
Alan.
Flanders,
August 10th 1916.
My dear Ethel,
The contents of the parcel were not “smallish”. You & Harry both seem to have an idea it was very tiny & even if it disappeared quickly it was not on account of our large tummies. Don’t think by any means that I thought it was rather small or anything like that. It was quite the right size. I am very glad you were able to get the screen after all, although I am astonished. I suppose the solution to the mystery of your being able to obtain it was the fact of everything happening in Ireland. As a rule people are not at all keen to get rid of anything purchased like that was at an auction sale. Do you know who copied it? I think the new move is great. I hope you like Worcester & that everything is satisfactory from a feminine standpoint. Doubtless it is large enough to prevent your becoming countrified and so forth. The fatigue – namely that of fetching rations – mentioned in Harry’s was so short today that I was able to come back & take the letter out & write anew. The whole time I was out shells seemed to be coming over very rapidly. They seemed to be all round our locality. I don’t know whether I’ve become nervy lately but one or two seemed pretty close to my napper & I was looking to see where one went & another came & I thought a piece flew very near my head. Whether it was shell, lump of earth or imagination I don’t know. For twenty yards & much more away from you the shock is perceptible. It’s like a very sudden gust of wind shaking you up. Yesterday I had a very sudden spasm of domesticity (is that word right?) I made a fire in our cookhouse, which was once is only twenty yards away & cooked some lovely cocoa which we had for breakfast with some biscuits. The cooks had not arrived & it was a good thing we did so as there would have been nothing to eat or drink for several hours afterwards. Water was very scarce & I had to get some with another fellow & I thought we had walked all over Belgium & France when we had finished. In the evening we made some tea from tea tablets. I wish someone would invent hot water tablets. Any amount of trouble would be saved. One day we were out in the nearest town & we went into a very large restaurant & asked for steak, chips, tomatoes & tea. At the same time a party of Australians were drinking French bottled beer. When they wanted anymore they called “Jean,” an old man of fifty, & he would toddle away yelling “tout-de-suite” all the time as quickly as possible. He would soon be back too with the beer. Our waitress “Augusta”, kept us waiting half an hour, then took our order & asked us whether we would like tea or coffee – we could have what we liked. We said tea. Afterwards we received steak & chips. The steak was beautifully tender but was not done as in English fashion. We waited another half hour or so & then gave it up. We mentioned the tea matter & she was sorry it was too much trouble & charged us two francs fifty each! I thought she was in our debt on account of the tomatoes, tea & time. She wrecked a whole evening. It was a great pity there was no “toute-de-suite” about Augusta. We are going digging or carrying shortly so I will finish. Besides which I mustn’t forget the post. Talking of carrying is painful. Everything one has to carry seems to be of a most The next five lines are blue pencilled. Needless to say it is impossible to observe this rule with one ten yards long. The next three lines are blue pencilled. Oh well! It’s all in a day’s work.
With love, I am,
Yours affectionately
Alan.
Both letters in an On Active Service envelope addressed to Harry R King, Esq., C/O The Surveyor of Taxes, The Avenue, The Cross, Worcester. Ansd 20/8
Postmarked FIELD POST OFFICE 124 11 AU 16. Hexagonal Passed Field Censor 3274 cachet. Signed H. Simpson
The Bay Museum & Research Facility 