20 July, ’17.

. . . The place I was writing from before got altogether too hot. That same afternoon, a woman got killed, and another shell took the front of a house off; a woman had just gone to a little lean-to shed only a second before, and therefore wasn’t hit. Such are the trifles that come between life and death in that town. The amazing thing was that half an hour afterwards the old man, the old woman, and a child were unconcernedly putting old boards up over the shell hole against the weather.

At night, we got orders to move. Eventually we arrived in a little wood and were told to “dis-miss.” F. and I lay under a tree. Early in the morning, it came on to rain. Next day, we tore down some old buildings, got pieces of rusty, old corrugated iron, and made a sort of lean-to against the tree. It rained all day and the wind was terrific. We covered it with branches broken from the bushes; it helped, but it wasn’t rainproof. Life is still very damp, and uncomfy — very.

Yesterday K. came back, looking very well and fit, but horribly despondent, as he’s missed his leave. I think he intended getting married. Can’t now, he says. He’d never try for a staff job down at the base. He asked to come back — would you believe it — because — he wasn’t getting his mail. Some reason!

You’ll see we’ve had the King over. He was up near us some time ago and reviewed some B.C. Canucks about a mile away. Luckily they didn’t call us out. If we had been, I guess we’d have been polishing and cleaning for six months ahead. You should have heard the language of the bunch he did see.

Reviews are the biggest bore out here. Apparently those who do the reviewing forget our chief consideration is whether we’ll be alive next week, or the one after, and therefore can hardly in the nature of things be wildly enthusiastic in having a brass hat walk by you, who never saw a shell exploded except through a telescope.

I want you to order “The Sunday Pictorial”, for July 15, '17. In it you will see a picture of the Church Service held on Dominion Day that I told you about. I am about the centre of the bunch of men on this side of it, though of course you cannot see me. I want you to keep it, as it is a fine example of how hot air is dished up to the public. It says: “Enemy Air Craft over a Church Service” — whereas it was our own planes, which of course the photographer knew — so would any of us who used his brain. It’s hardly likely about four thousand men would stand packed in a bunch calmly looking up at an enemy aeroplane while the padre carried on with the service. It’s like the pictures you see of big bugs in the trenches. Yes — trenches for teaching recruits down at Havre or somewhere. There’s always something that gives it away to any one in the know, like showing men with gas masks not at the alert — i.e. on the chest — or without a tin hat.

Now I must finish this. Writing is very difficult. It’s wet, cold and windy, and I ain’t got no ’ome, at least only a very flimsy one. . . .