Flanders

July 12^th 1916.

My dear Harry,

Very humbly indeed I am able to approach you after hearing the startling news from yours of the ninth that you have written me without one of my numerous efforts having been before you.  However without a doubt you had a letter from me on the tenth.  We have been and are still very quiet at our part of the line.   We have recently been in a rest camp but it is much better being where we are now as we don’t have half as much work to do.  We had to spend the best part of the day digging.  The march to the digging place took as long as the digging.  Also – very awful, you must agree – we had to get up at five-thirty.  Having breakfast at six-fifteen & a rifle, chin & button inspection at seven-thirty one couldn’t stretch a point beyond six.  In the bargain I was vaccinated the second day after the arrival at the rest camp.  Digging under such conditions was bad enough but I suffered most mentally as I thought I had dodged it.  At the rest camp however there were two canteens, a coffee & recreation room, farmhouses & estaminets.  That part was prettier too than any other place we have been to.  There were some lovely flower gardens in all their glory.  Today I had to go to the Medical Officer – being fifth day after the vac; – & I am excused digging & heavy fatigue.  My arm is quite the usual case.  None of your or Bernard’s affairs for me.  Oh of course I am in the best of spirits.  Give me some new clothes & I feel a terrible blood.  Mother sent me a pair of drill (or duck I forget what they are called) khaki shorts, and with bare knees I am a nut.  Our present dug-out is one of the best we have struck & we are very cosy.  Have you “More Fragments from France” by Capt Bruce Bainsfather?  It is his second volume of cartoons & it is surprising how true they are.  By the way I am not a runner to any publishing firm.

Last letter I suggested a magazine, I remember.  That also brings another thing to my mind.  Have you any news of the sale of your book of poems?  Have you received any dibs therefore lately?  Are you still thrusting objects of art on an undeserving nation?  One of my dug-out pals – of a literary turn of mind – is desirous of purchasing a copy of your “Sonnets”.  I don’t know how the business will be carried out.  We have been having new potatoes for the past week & a dozen of us volunteered to shell peas this evening so we are to have green peas tomorrow.  Incidentally we had a shelling competition in which I gained no prize but the last place.  I think I will now turn to your letter of the second which arrived the day after the letter I sent you last.  Of course I needn’t tell you that.  It goes without saying.  I am glad to see you are writing me every Sunday.  The steel helmet is my constant companion.  Our Company Sergeant Major sees to that.  Yes, the gas helmets are very effective.  If your helmet is all in order – and they are very careful on that score – and you put it on quickly enough you are absolutely safe from gas.  Without the helmet half a dozen whiffs are fatal.  You carry your helmet with you everywhere & see that they are within reach before going to sleep.  A spare one is issued to every man.  I expect you have understood that there has to be an easterly wind before we can be attacked & the moment the wind changes a gas alert is put on.  I have asked an R.G.A. sergeant if he knows where Bernard’s crowd is but he didn’t know.

I think I will close now.  I am enclosing a note for Ethel but I don’t know what I am going to say.

            Cheers!

                        Yours

                                    Alan.

On Active Service envelope addressed to Harry R King, Esq., Munmore, Zion Road, Rathgar, Dublin.

Postmarked FIELD POST OFFICE 124, 15 JY 16.  Hexagonal Passed Field Censor 3274 cachet.  Signed but unreadable.