ESTREE CAUCHIE, France

September 30, 1917

My Darling Budsie:

Your last letter dated Sept 2nd received few days ago. we have not had any mail for a week now, but are expecting the mail corporal to come down tonight. we are at the C.C.S (Central Clearing Station) and very glad if it too. as most of the boys have been up the line two or three days at a time since we left, we have been here three weeks next Tuesday and altho it is a bomb proof job, I am not ashamed to be holding it down because I have seen as much of the line as any of the boys - in fact a whole lot more than most of them. There the flashes in the sky are something extraordinary. You have noticed after a very hot day in Canada, sheet lightning lights up the sky. Well that resembles it here only it is one continuance of flashes and the rumble of the guns is like a distant thunder storm. I think a big land mine was exploded last night because about seven o'clock there was a terrible crash that shook our building and every window in the place rattled. Our friend Fritz can't make it out at all now. Until July 1st he had it all his own way and it was our side that was getting the benefit of the bombardments, but now he wonders how on earth we got all the guns and shells, and as a prisoner exclaimed " you British don't know a bombardment is - you should be in our trenches for a while!". After we captured Thiepval this week - a strong point that we have made some ten or eleven previous attempts to capture - Fritz counter - attacked three times and was driven back without the aid of the infantry at all. Our artillery kept them back. A Royal Garrison Artillery man told me yesterday that we have enough guns on this front now to literally blow the "- - - - -s" back! So it's only a question of time now - Victory is certain! And to crown it all, we are getting beautiful weather. It is perhaps averaging one rainy day in seven.

Well, there is absolutely no news to tell you at all. I have not received any mail except letters from you and Mother, for over five weeks. Don't forget to send some cigs. I have spent all my money on them.

Give my love to Nina and remember me to Heck, "C.B." and Tommy. Has Aggie been down to see you yet? I am sending you a book called "Fragments from France" Altho very funny, it is, in most cases, true.

All my love dear, As ever your own

Cis.