December 24th 1916

Dear Mother

Well this is Christmas eve and again I am spending it under somewhat unusual conditions, however, things are not looking so awfully bad.

This evening forty turkeys arrived for the party of T.G.H.s up the line, but as there are 250 of us the sample wont be very large. Unfortunately the war does not observe Sundays or Xmas day etc so everything will go on as usual.

The rest of the men are looking after the horses away back, and our programme is to stay up here until the end of January after which according to Gen. Sealy (late MP) our Brigadier every man has to be mounted.

We are certainly lucky to have so good a General, I have never heard anything but praise spoken of him by anyone; and he is certainly a first class man for looking after the welfare of the men.

My slicker has come in very handy; it took a long time to get out, so long that I was beginning to think that it was lost.

From your letters I think you must have sent some parcels since then but nothing has arrived so far, I don't think the Southampton route is very safe.

I was lucky to receive secure this green envelope we had one for our dugout, so it was necessary to toss up for it, & I was lucky enough to get it although there is nothing whatever to write about.

I suppose Audrey is home now; tell her S not Y. It think she will understand.

25th Xmas day
Cheers! The most magnificent parcel has just arrived, it couldn't have arrived at a more opportune moment. We were just beginning to think that we were going to spend our merry Xmas fasting, but now we are preparing to heat up the pudding & have an excellent feed for supper.

This morning I was in a wood, which has recently been heavily shelled; it is extraordinary the way in which large trees, two to three foot through at the base, have been chopped up into small lengths, everything was flat except about half a dozen stumps stripped of their limbs. (Maurepes Somme)

It is hard to believe that the country was ever inhabited, so great is the ruin. One has to be thankful that it wasn't England.

Audrey says she is knitting me a balaclava cap; tell her not to make it too large they are handy to wear under a steel helmet.

You must thank May for the chocolate she so kindly enclosed. You would be pleased to see how much your parcels are appreciated as we were pretty short of grub at the time what canteens there are only get a limited supply of grub and the largest one was blown up two or three days ago.

During a clear day last week I saw one of Fritz's aeroplanes brought down by our anti Air Craft guns: three planes came over our lines & I was just beside the guns when they opened fire. After about 20 shots, one of the aeroplanes was seen to send out a lot of smoke and to dive rapidly for the ground. Everybody around cheered like anything.

Much love

Cuthbert