France
October 15th 1916
My dear Harry,
You will have been wondering what on earth has happened to me. This is the first opportunity I have had of writing you for ages & ages. I had your letter of the first on the ninth. Since then we have been moving & working hard. We joined the battalion again & fifty of us had to come here two days after. We work like niggers here. It is heavy & occupies nearly the whole day. The letters I have sent Mother have been very short notes. Thank Ethel for the fruit & sweets in the parcel Mother sent. It arrived at the Prisoners Cage the day before we left. A bottle costs five francs (4/2d). We wouldn’t mind giving up such luxuries to come home again. Whilst we were at the PC latterly the rest of the battalion went up to the trenches & advanced a couple of hundred yards magnificently. They went over the top & were under terrible machine gun fire. We rest blue pencilled. They had rest blue pencilled. They were shelled constantly. Some fellows only went up for the last night & yet they went under. The battalion now is very different from when it left Aldershot. My little crowd of pals who left Highbeach are nearly all wounded, several of them seriously. I was the only machine gunner in our company left. Rogers was one of the few N.C.O’s to come through safely. Dickson is reported as wounded. Any amount of people saw him so but do not know what happened to him afterwards. Being away from the battalion means a delay in having letters but I am becoming very anxious as when Jack Francis was wounded I heard about five days afterwards. He was last seen wounded in a shell hole & I am hoping he is all right. Of course with all the excitement & plenty to do the mail is in a very confused state. Jack Francis sent me a letter which arrived yesterday. He is in St. Helens, Lancs. I have an idea we have started leave at a tortoise’s pace. I know not how it will affect we fifty but we are all looking forward to getting some. Lister, a Crossleys boy was killed & Rippon, another, was wounded in the last affair. I must write to the school & tell them one day. When the survivors get their commissions I am afraid few of the Aldershot men will be left. In these times we get drafts from anywhere & the fellows of our old depot companies have gone similarly to any other battalion. If ever your group is called up I advise you to join anything but the infantry but I hope the Government won’t let you. We miss the old fellows terribly. Food is rather at a premium here. The army is by no means generous & there is only a Y.M.C.A. which I haven’t had time or have been too tired to visit. We might be worse off though, but as Mr Bristows says, not much. I don’t know what on earth to say. There doesn’t seem to be any news. So I think I will close with love to Ethel. I am
Your loving brother,
Alan.
Oct 17th. We moved last night after having rejoined the battn the previous day at a nice village to another decent little town near the very big one where we were before only for a few days I expect.
I received your & Ethel’s letters of the eighth yesterday & will reply again.
Very busy now.
On Active Service envelope addressed to Harry R King, Esq., Glen Hilda, 38, Park Avenue, Worcester. Ansd 22/10/16
Postmarked FIELD POST OFFICE 117 18 OC 16. Hexagonal Passed Field Censor 3274 cachet. Signed ** Bollard.
