Same address
5 March, 1915

My dear Father:

I think I told you of our march last Sunday from the quarters we first occupied to this new position somewhat nearer the scene of action. The day was fine, and we had little to carry, so the walk was quite pleasant. We got a royal welcome from the officers of the corps we are relieving. They fed us magnificently, and gave us every comfort. On Sunday evening I had my first experience of going with an ambulance squad to the aid post where the wounded are brought by the regimental stretcher-bearers, and whence they are "evacuated" to the hospital further back. Our hospital is near the divisional headquarters. The advanced dressing station where most of the men are billeted, and where I live with three doctors, is a couple of miles nearer the firing line. The officers’ quarters here consist of one large room and a smaller one. The large one is divided by hanging blankets into two compartments, the inner one being bedroom for two doctors, and the outer one being dining and writing room. The cooking is done elsewhere. The smaller room is occupied by the third doctor (a Queen’s man) and myself. It is furnished with a bed, large and luxurious, which my medical colleagues were good enough to insist on assigning to me. They did me the same honour as the doctors of the former corps did to their "padre", and I assure you it is no empty honour; it means solid comfort. For three nights I have slept in a bed, on a spring mattress, a thing I had not done once in the preceding month. Our transport officer at headquarters – a brother, as it happens, of my tent-mate on Salisbury Plain, – is on the lookout for some horses he needs, and he will secure me a saddle horse whenever horses arrive. Meantime, when I need a horse, I can borrow the charger of one of the doctors here. Here, I need hardly say, we are quite out of range of rifle fire. Theoretically we are within range of the big guns, but the risk is exceedingly small. One sees the civil population of the villages going about their work, and the peasants ploughing their land as if there were no such thing as war, and we ourselves eat and sleep and move and have our being as unconcerned as if we were at home. In fact, it is often hard to make oneself believe that he is anywhere near fighting. But for trenches dug here and there and villages more or less bombarded, the land looks almost exactly as it would in time of peace. Then one sees a clump of trees and a few men in khaki, and on going closer one discovers a gun or two. Yesterday my senior clerical colleague and I walked a mile or two to a spot where we were told that some of our guns were busy, and we found an officer I knew directing the fire of two of his guns that were trying to get the range of an object in the German trenches two miles distant as the crow flies. From the position of the guns one could see nothing; all the aiming was done according to instructions telephoned by an observing officer a long distance ahead. We strolled about and chatted in the intervals of fire. It was for all the world like gun practice in some secluded part of the world far away. Of course, the Germans try to find our batteries and silence them occasionally, and we return the compliment. That is one reason why some of the artillery men who tend the guns live in dug-outs, instead of tents or houses. We visited half a dozen of them in one of these dug-outs, and found them far more comfortable than might be expected, and all in the best of spirits. Then we went and made an afternoon call on another artillery officer I know even better than the first. At home we would not have found him in his house at that hour. But here people have more leisure. He spread out his map on the table, and showed us how his guns had been firing during the morning. To me it was an exceedingly interesting lesson, in the way the artillery support the infantry.

Of course, if one hears that a particular village is being shelled, one keeps away, for foolhardiness would be criminal. The country has spent a lot of money in bringing us here, and it would not be fair play for any of us to risk life or limb needlessly. But as a rule one can go about anywhere within limits without the least danger. That is part of a chaplain’s business and that is why he is entitled to a horse on active service. He is expected to keep in touch with the troops not at the moment in action, to visit them in their billets from time to time, to hold services on occasion, and generally to do what he can for their welfare, spiritual and physical. Our division is taking over a number of reading rooms established for the use of the soldiers we are relieving. Divisional headquarters have authorised my senior colleague, the brigade chaplain, to get games and magazines for this recreation room. The chaplains will be required to keep some sort of supervision. But I do not look for any series of delays in getting this unpretentious room in running order as I had in my library efforts on Salisbury Plain. The chaplain here before me, a remarkably fine fellow and a prime favourite with everyone, from brigadier to drummer, told me that he often visited the trenches after dark when things were quiet; he enjoyed it, and the men appreciated it. I decided to do the same if possible. The brigadier gave ready permission, so it was arranged that last evening I should make my first visit to the trenches. I walked to one of two aid posts in advance of the ambulance party, and thence a few minutes further down the road to the battalion headquarters. They were not pretentions; only a hut of two small rooms, lit by a single candle and a feeble oil lamp. Then I met the colonel and other officers, and presently who should appear but the brigadier and some of his officers, to inspect some of the trenches. He went one way with suitable escort, a major and myself went another way, led by a captain. You have some pictures of the trenches, so I need not try to describe them, especially as I saw them on somewhat dark night. They curve and wind and twist, and as you plough your way through mud you bump every now and then into men you know, have a "crack" with them, peer into this dug-out and that, into the shelters where two or three men have stowed themselves and are fast asleep, come across one little group of men after another smoking and cooking round a brazier filled with glowing charcoal, while all the time a certain proportion of the troops are doing sentry-go to prevent a supprise attack, the engineers are busy constructing obstacles or parapets, and possibly some officers are out between the lines of trenches moving about and picking up any information they can get. Just now things are very quiet along our line. During the hour or so that I spent in the trenches we could hear the booming of big guns miles away where an artillery duel was being fought, and occasionally a flare thrown by the enemy would light up the trenches and the country for hundreds of yards around, and similar flares thrown by us would do the same, but not a single shot was fired on either side. When I got back to battalion headquarters the colonel most hospitably invited me to wait and share with the officers the dinner that was being kept hot on a couple of tin dishes placed on the floor by the brazier, but by that time it was half past nine and I thought it better to "hit the trail" for home. The ambulance party had already left. Fortunately at that aid post they could collect only one slightly wounded man. But at the other aid post, had I been present, there would have been a funeral service form me to conduct, for in that section two of our men had been killed during the day. At this second aid post, a couple of nights ago I had my first funeral of men killed in action. One had been hit in the head, brought in unconscious, and had remained in till his death sixteen hours later, the other was brought in while I was there. By this time the moon had risen, so on the principle of running no risk of having groups of men stand exposed in the open, I asked these who wished to come into the barn where the bodies lay, and there by candlelight we had the brief but deeply impressive service. Then the stretcher bearers carried the bodies, one by one, to the graves that had been dug for them after nightfall, they were buried in blankets, amid almost unbroken silence, and the grave of each was marked by a wooden cross.

After months of experience of this sort of thing men are naturally less impressed. It would affect their service if they felt the death of every comrade as keenly as they felt the first, and lack of nerves often helps to make a man a good soldier. It certainly has much to do with making the British "Tommy" the splendid fighter he is. Perhaps you have heard the story of the soldier who a few weeks ago was in the trenches trying to light his pipe by means of one of the atrocious, evil-smelling, sulphur matches used in this country. A shell burst and killed two men on his right and two on his left. He turned to the nearest living man and remarked, "Well, this bloody French tobacco and these damned Belgian matches will be the death of me yet". What in this world can disturb the coolness of such a man?

Now I have rambled on and on till it is almost time for lunch. When I saw Huntly last Saturday he was the picture of health. Soon I expect to see him again. Presumably he is at the new railhead busy forwarding supplies to the fighting men. My health was never better. I find this life more enjoyable and more interesting every day.

With warmest love to each one,
Ever your loving son,
A.M.G.