France

September 21^st 1916

My dear Harry,

Your letter of the tenth was waiting for me when we came out of the trenches at the beginning of the week.  With regard to the two apple trees I think it would be worthwhile to have them pruned by a gardener.  They never bear unless looked after.  Since I wrote to you last time we have experienced many things.  We went into the trenches, had some work to attend to & came out.  You will have read in the papers of an advance.  We had a hand in it.  One evening we left camp, had a march until the following dawn when we attacked.  The latter part of the march was through **** which was awful.  I don’t remember anything green in it at all.  Not a tree left whole.  It was ** *** of tree stumps, shell holes, corpses & fighting equipment.  I read in a newspaper that it was beyond the imagination and it is quite true.  I wrenched my ankle & had to fall out for twenty minutes or so which meant great difficulty in finding the battalion again.  I managed it although I had another wrench.  I would have been in an awful state otherwise.  We passed out of ** *** onto the battlefield and then the battle started.  Our artillery was great in its activity.  We advanced very coolly I must say.  I didn’t see anyone flinch.  Some fellows were smoking & others singing.  There was such a hail of shrapnel, shell & shot that it is astonishing anyone is even left alive.  We had only gone ten yards when a man near me fell headlong & gave me a bit of a shock.  It was impossible to see far ahead owing to the smoke.  I was attached to the machine gun & had to follow my gunner with ammunition.  I found it rather difficult owing to my foot & the earth which is all loose owing to the shelling.  The ground is absolutely honey-combed with shell holes.  This is no exaggeration & I have heard since of several shells falling into shell holes.  Our gun went steadily on until we went too far it appears.  An officer sent us back.  He said we did not belong to his wave & that we were in our own “barrage” (the area we shell).  Evidently he was in it as well if we were I thought.  On the way two fellows were wounded.  I got a fellow to attend to one of them & I & another chap patched the fellow up.  He was an old pal of mine & I was pleased to be able to do it.  He had a shrapnel wound which went right through the flesh on the outside of his thigh.  We put him in a shell hole met our second gun & proceeded to a trench we had captured & started digging & with our second gun which we met coming up.  Our officer – a fine chap – then took us out to the right flank where we were unable to do any good.  We were shelled very heavily & annoyed by a machine gunner in the distance.  After some hours we returned to the nearest trench in pairs, where we had to consolidate.  Meantime our brigade had taken a village & some distance behind it.  They had practically no bayonet work to do as the enemy would surrender immediately there was a chance of hand to hand encounters.  A quarter of our fellows held the most advanced part of the line.  A counter attack at night was repulsed.  Our battalion had to be relieved & went to the supports for the rest of our stay in the trenches.  Our fellows have all sorts of souvenirs.  The casualties are not considered great by any means.  Several of my chums were wounded slightly & one or two are missing unhappily.  Rogers & I came through without a scratch.  Dickson was chosen not to go into the battle & was most indignant about it.  Our bombing officer & a company officer especially distinguished themselves.  It is feared the officer in charge of our company was killed.  The next in command was wounded.  Two other clever officers in Dickson’s company were killed also.  We were shelled heavily while in supports.  There were some fearful sights.  The appearance of a battle field the next dawn is beyond description.  Our general inspected us after we came out & thanked us.  The King &Sir Douglas Haig were also thankful.  Rumour hath it that our brigade is the talk of the army.  The stretcher-bearers did good work.  The trenches were very rough but we made them pretty secure in no time I can assure you.  I had a rather nasty job of taking the water bottles off a dead-man’s equipment to give to three wounded fellows in a shell hole but it broke me in and I didn’t mind doing anything with what was left lying on the field afterwards.  I happened to walk on a dead man in the dark & it gave me the shivers.  Our general told us the Germans met with one of the greatest defeats in this battle that they have had.  It is my birthday today & I am looking forward to some letters.  I had a Roll of Honour List from school.

Well I must now close.  I expect to have your letter today after I have posted this.  Best wishes & love to Ethel,

from your young brother

            Alan.

No cover with this letter as in envelope of even date to Ethel.