31 December, ’16. Sunday — (New Year’s Eve).

My very dearest Lal, —

Today we were quite lucky. Apparently there were no parties to go out anywhere, so we went to Church in the Cinema Hall. It wasn’t very interesting. Tonight there is a special service —with communion, if you wish—it is a voluntary affair — at seven-thirty. Chaplains who know how to talk and interest men up near, and at the front line, are awfully scarce. I’ve only heard one real, live, sincere one, and he was at La Havre. . . .

Did I tell you at Xmas the boys who drive the big transport trucks all decorated them with holly, and the big gun fellows actually hung mistletoe on the guns?

That’s one reason why we can’t lose the war: our boys are irrepressible, in a sporting way, not surlily savage. That spirit wouldn’t last. Ours will. Only the newspapers talk of Huns. They are always Fritzes to us. The boys kill ’em with the same good nature that they laugh at them, when they come in as prisoners. The most common remark is, “Hello Fritz! When’s the war going to end?” Fritz soon catches the spirit, and goes about his work quite cheerfully. He has a canteen of his own, and can smoke and all that. His rations, I think, are identical; I know he gets a third of a loaf of bread, just as we do. It wasn’t him that invented gas and liquid flame.

Mention of gas reminds me Arras was shelled heavily again the other day with gas shells. My chum Billy was gassed slightly at the salient. He and others were asleep, when he thought his rubber sheet smelt funny — Fritz was shelling all around; but nothing special. Suddenly he thought perhaps they were gas shells, — and kicked up as many sleepers as he could, meantime trying to pull his mask over his head — (that was before we got the fine new ones) but he hadn’t time. It was beating him, so he stuffed as much of the thing into his mouth as he could and beat it. A great many died. He’s a fine husky lad; but he’s never been the same, he says. His eyes are not so good, and his chest is bad now and then. He was wounded too, and wears a little gold stripe; also he’s a corporal. I’ll want you to meet him some day —

I am getting more impressed every day with the perfect organization and readiness of things here. Whatever it was before, today I cannot see a fault, not one. Of course, we all kick all the time, “grouse” as the English call it; but that is a soldier’s privilege. We kick at the rations, the work, everything; but that doesn’t signify anything. If we shouldn’t win, it is not the soldiers’ — by that I mean the Armies’ — fault. Everything is like a perfect, well-oiled piece of machinery. All the men are well clothed, good boots — so essential. All the men are well; there is no sickness whatever. I mean no fevers and that sort of thing. All things like tools for every purpose are here in abundance; ammunition — well — in more than abundance. Our planes are up in the sky all the time in flocks, and the big guns — I don’t know what to say about them. I don’t even begin to know where they are; but I know wherever we are, one is liable to make you jump by letting off a round or so, apparently out of the earth. The transports run day and night with the regularity of trains; and reinforcements of all these things are right here, right at hand. But most of all, the right spirit is here. Every one knows we are winning. There is no fuss — no hurry. The vast organization is like a successful business, running smoothly with plenty of work and orders on hand. I wonder if Fritz can say the same. All I know, his batteries do not reply to ours, his planes put a show in once in a while; but, in less than two minutes, he is surrounded by little clouds of bursting shrapnel and our flying boys are after him like a hawk on a pigeon. He never waits, always turns tail and beats it. Also, I think he flies too high for accurate observation. Truth to tell, I don’t blame him.

All this speaks to only one end. Only a silly ass thinks we are going to pour through, and on to the Rhine. This isn’t a war of pitched battles of that kind. Moral effect — that now common phrase — matters more and more, and will be the decisive factor — Army — then Civil. To advance a mile doesn’t sound much; but imagine what it would be if Fritz advanced a mile here! It isn’t the trenches; but the vast organization behind that suffers most; the roads and routes, the cables, the ’phones, the billets, gun emplacements, supply depots, and Oh — everything. To put that out of gear is what counts.

Behind every mile of trenches is literally a town — a temporary town, true; but a town with all its organization from water supply to electric light. Say, what a fortune a fellow could make — will make, many of them — conducting touring parties through here, after it is all over! Then millions will come; I’ll never rest till I come here myself. I want to see the Salient, Courcelette (Our Capture), and I want to see Fritz’s side of the thing. I suppose all the dugouts and trenches will be left for generations for this very purpose; and old French farmers will coin money out of otherwise barren land. Souvenir hunting will be interesting; queer things will be dug up — unless the French Government prohibit touring parties until all is made sanitary — which I guess they will.