Perhaps this address will be quite a shock to you if you know what it means. So I hasten to say that I am perfectly all right, really. "Clearing Station"—perhaps that won't have the ominous look to you that "Hospital" would, though it means the same thing. But the point is, I am all right. I told you I'd get through, and I have. The fact that I'm lying in bed here—in luxurious comfort—is only an incident. I am quite safe and perfectly all right.

They tell me here that directly an officer is wounded information to that effect is sent home to his people. Well, I hope you will get this word from me first, and accept my assurance that there's nothing to worry about. These good folk here will put me as right as ninepence in no time, and I hope very shortly to be back with the Company and in the new line.

It was shrapnel, you know, and got me in the left leg and a bit in the right arm just when I was most wanting the use of both of 'em. I hope they haven't told you I'm going to lose my leg or anything, because I'm not. The surgeon here—a first-rate chap and a splendid surgeon—has told me all about it, and my leg will very soon be as good as ever.

This is just a line to let you know I am perfectly all right. I'll write and tell you all about it to-morrow.

I wonder whether the dispatches will have told you anything. The push was splendid. We've got that corner, and The Gut is well behind our front line now.

My letter of yesterday will have assured you that I am all right; nothing at all to worry about. I meant to have written you fully to-day about the push. But we've been busy. The surgeon's been cleaning me up—getting rid of useless souvenirs, you know; and it seems I'm better keeping pretty still and quiet to-day. Shall be out and about all the quicker, you see. This is a perfectly heavenly place, where you don't hear a vestige of gun-fire, and everything is sweet and clean, quiet and easy; no responsibility, no anything but comfort and ease. What a luxurious loaf I'm having! I'll write to-morrow.

I'm going ahead like a house afire; but so confoundedly lazy, you'd hardly believe it. I suppose this pencil will be legible, though it hardly looks it to me. As I say, I'm too lazy for words; simply wallowing in comfort and cleanliness. Thought I would just pencil a line now, so that you would know I was perfectly all right and then I can write properly to-morrow.

Another lazy day. I really ought to be at work, you know, so well and fit I am. But I just laze in this delightful bed, and watch the busy orderlies and sisters flitting to and fro, as though I were in a dream and other folk had to do all the world's work. The good old "Peacemaker" has come in to see me, and is writing this for me; chiefly because of my laziness, and partly that I like to spare you the work of deciphering the hieroglyphics I make with my left hand. The right arm is pretty good, you know, but it seems I'll get it entirely sound again rather quicker by not using it just now; and it's rather jolly to have one's O.C. Company working for one in this way.

He says that while I was about it I was a duffer not to get a real Blighty, and so have a holiday and come and see you all. As a fact, I've no doubt he's profoundly grateful that he will not be robbed of my invaluable services for long. "A" Company was relieved last night by a Company of the ——; in our new trenches, you know; the trenches that used to belong to Mister Boche; so our fellows are having a bit of a rest, I'm glad to say. Not the luxurious rest I'm having, of course; but something to be going on with.

I meant to tell you a whole lot of things, but for the laziness that makes me so greedy for naps and dozes. Also, they say visitors have to leave now, and "the Peacemaker" has a good way to ride. I'll write properly to-morrow. Meantime "the Peacemaker" is good enough to say he will write you to-night particulars as to how I got my scratches; so I won't ask him to write any more now. He will carry this on himself when he gets back to-night—while I laze and sleep.

As promised, I am adding a few lines to this for our good friend. I have not yet told him, but as a fact I am the only unwounded officer in "A" Company at the moment, and we were relieved last night in order that we might reorganise. Lieutenant Morgan—"Taffy"—was killed, I grieve to say, in the beginning of the advance, and our casualties for the Company were thirty-two killed and seventy-eight wounded. It's a terrible price, of course, but you will understand that a big loss was inevitable in our Company, when I tell you that we not only led the advance, but led it from the notorious Petticoat Lane, where the front is extraordinarily difficult to cross. We were very proud to be chosen for the lead, and compared with the net gain for the line, our loss is small, really. Indeed, if the entire casualties in the whole advance are weighed up against the position won, I believe I am right in saying that the cost was remarkably low. The gain in the line is immense, and there is not the smallest chance of the Boches taking it back again. Although our bombardment knocked his trenches about pretty badly—they were very strong trenches indeed, to begin with, very strongly placed and favourably situated—since our occupation we have worked day and night to make of the corner practically a fortified position, and one from which we can punish the Boche pretty severely on both flanks. I think this gain will lead to other gains before long in this sector. Our information is that the Boche casualties were very heavy. However, I did not mean to run on like this with regard to the military aspect. It is our friend you will want to hear about.

Now, in the first place, I should like to be allowed to say what you perhaps have guessed: that he is a very fine and a very valuable officer. I am not a bad judge, not only because I command his Company, but because, unlike himself, I am not quite without military knowledge of the kind that came before the war, having a good many years behind me of service as a Volunteer, and then as a Territorial, down to within seven months of the beginning of the war when I joined this Service Battalion. And I have no hesitation in saying that our friend is a fine and valuable officer. I know that a big share of any credit due for the fine training and discipline of our Company—which is, I think, admitted to be the crack Company of the best Battalion in the Brigade—is due, not to me, but to the Commander of our No. 1 Platoon. It is a very great loss to me to have him laid aside now; but I am so thankful his life is spared that I have no regret to waste over his being wounded. But I do very sincerely hope that he will be able to return to us, to the reorganised "A" Company, for I have never met an officer I would sooner have beside me. The men of the Platoon, and, indeed, of the whole Company, are devoted to him; and I regard it as little short of marvellous that in so comparatively short a time a man who had never had even the slightest hint of military training should have been able to become, all round, so efficient, so well posted technically, and, above all, so confident and absolutely so successful a leader of men. For that has been his greatest asset: that his men will go anywhere with him, do anything for him, trust him without the slightest reserve or doubt.

You know more about his character than I do, but I venture to say that the character you know has been wonderfully developed by the war and by his military training. He may have been the most lovable of men before, but I cannot believe that he was anything like so strong a man or so able a man. Confidence, fearlessness, decisiveness—strength, in fact; these qualities, I am sure, have developed greatly in him since he joined. I sometimes think there is nothing more wonderful in all this wonderful period of the war than the amazing development it has brought in the thousands of young Englishmen who now are capable and efficient officers, loved and trusted by their men, and as able in every way as any officers the British Army ever had, although the great majority of them have no military tradition behind them, and before August, 1914, had no military training. That is wonderful, and I am convinced that no other race or nation in the wide world could have produced the same thing. The men, fine as they are, might have been produced elsewhere, or something like them. But this apparently inexhaustible supply of fine and efficient officers—no, I think not.

The newspapers will have told you something of our little push, and I will not trouble you with any technical detail. We advanced over a very narrow front after a short but intense bombardment. Our friend led the right half of "A" because I did not want to rob his own Platoon of his immediate influence. His is No. 1. The pace was hot, despite the torn and treacherous nature of the ground. The right half did even better than my half, and stormed the first Boche line with extraordinary dash and vigour. It seemed as though nothing could stop their impetuosity; and in the midst of the tremendous din I caught little waves of their shouting more than once.

Our friend had crossed the first line, and successfully led his men to the very edge of the second line, shouting to his men to join him in taking it, when the shell burst that brought him down. The same shell must have laid some Boches low, if that is any consolation. Not that we need any consolation. I feel sure you will agree with me in that.

But I want to tell you that the wounds in the right arm—not serious, I am thankful to say—were not from the same shell. They came in the neighbourhood of the first Boche line. That same right arm (after it was wounded), carrying a loaded stick, knocked up a Boche bayonet that was due to reach the chest of a man in No. 1 Platoon and then served to support the same man on the parapet of the Boche trench—he was already wounded—for a few moments till a stretcher-bearer got him. It was not possible for our friend to stay with him, of course. A few seconds later he was leading his men full pelt towards the second line; and all that after his first wound. I thought you would like to know that. Our C.O. knows it, and I venture to hope it will find mention in dispatches.

And now with regard to his condition. Whilst he is not quite so forward as he thinks—there is, of course, no question of his coming back to duty in a few days, as he fancies—there is, I think, no cause whatever for anxiety. In fact, the M.O. at the Clearing Station assured me of so much. His general health is excellent; nothing septic has intervened; it is simply a question of a little time. The worst that is likely to happen is that the left leg may be permanently a shade shorter than the right, and it is hoped this may be averted. His Company—all that is left of us—will be very sincerely glad to see him back again. Meantime we rejoice, as I am sure you will, in the manner, the distinction, of his fall, in the certainty of his enjoying the rest he has earned so well, and in the prospect of his recovery.