113rd Siege Battery R.G.A.

France 17^th Sept 1916

Sunday

My Dear Harry & Ethel,

            I yesterday received your letters dated the 10^th instant – last Sunday – and am very much obliged to you both.

            I am now having the time of my life as I am with our Ammunition Column and enjoying a good rest.  It is splendid here: we are camped in a field some miles from the firing line and can only just hear our own guns.  Everything is nice and clean and there are no shell holes about, the war except for the traffic up and down the roads has not made any mark just in the immediate neighbourhood, but the one time villages which are scattered about are very battered.  It is glorious to be living in a roomy tent after having been confined to pokey little dugouts.  I have had several runs on the motor lorries and it is wonderfully interesting behind the lines: one sees more of the War behind the lines in a couple of days than up in the lines during a couple of months.

            I saw yesterday’s “Continental Daily Mail” & was glad to see the War News continues very good.  Up to the present Alan has not been in this district & I hope he will not have to come here – it is not over healthy for any one.  Our Battery are having a busy time once again six words blue pencilled out. I wonder if you have seen the picture “The Battle of the Somme”: I notice that one house refused to show it as it was a place of amusement & not a chamber of horrors.  It is glorious weather and in the field we are in French women are gathering in the crops – after three months of guns, shells you cannot imagine how delightful it is.

            Yours with best love,

                        Bernard.

In On Active Service envelope addressed to Mr & Mrs Harry R King, Esq., Glen Hilda, Park Avenue, Worcester, England.

Ans^d 24/9/16

Postmarked FIELD POST OFFICE R.5.  18 SP 16.  Hexagonal PASSED FIELD CENSOR 3624.  Signed F.L.K. Fletcher.