You are quite right in saying that I don't feel much interest in political affairs at home these days. The fact is, we do not often see the newspapers, and when we see them there isn't much time for really reading them or giving much consideration to what they say. The war news is interesting, of course; but all this endless talky-talky business, why, I can hardly tell you how queerly it strikes us out here. You see, we are very close to concrete realities all the time, and to us it seems the talky-talky people are most amazingly remote from realities of any kind. They seem to us to be very much interested in shadows, notions, fads, fancies, and considerations of interests which we think were washed out of existence at the very beginning of the war. They even seem able to strive mightily and quarrel virulently over the discussion of the principles and abstractions involved in things they propose to do when the war is over!

M-m-m-m-m-m! Seems to us the thing is to get it over, and in the right way. No, we are not much interested in the political situation. The tangible actualities of the situation out here seem to us very pressing; pressing enough to demand all the energies and all the attention; every atom of the strength of all the people of the British race; without any wastage over more remote things, abstractions, things ante and post bellum. Here in France I can assure you men, women, and children are all alike in that they have no life outside the war. Every thought, every act, everything is in and for the war. The realities are very close here.

One thing in that last letter of yours especially pleases me. "We have now got to the point in England at which all the people of both sexes who are worth their salt are busy at war work of one kind or another."

That's excellent. Well, now rope in the ones who are not "worth their salt." You'll find they're all right, once they're roped in. I don't believe in this idea of some people not being worth their salt; not in England, anyhow. The stock is too good. You know the type of hoodlum who, with licks of hair plastered over his forehead, seems to spend his days leaning against a lamp-post. The fellow I mean has a perfectly beastly habit of spitting over everything in sight; when riding on top of a 'bus, for instance. Despised by decent men, he's a real terror to decent women. Same type, I suppose, as the Apache of Paris. Every big city breeds 'em.

Well, all I want to tell you about this gentleman is, never to run away with the notion that he can't be worth his salt. All he needs is to be taught the meaning of authority. It's only a matter of months; even weeks. With my own eyes I have watched the process at work. Nobody will ever again be able to delude me about it. In a country like ours there are no people "not worth their salt." The worst type of man we've got only needs a few months in a Battalion like ours, during the training period, to learn the meaning of authority, and, by means of discipline, to have his latent manhood developed. It's there all right. Only he'll never develop it of his own accord. Authority must be brought to bear. The Army method is the quickest and best. In a few months it makes these fellows men, and thundering good men at that. Worth their salt! They're worth their weight in—well, to take something real and good, say in 'baccy and cartridges—real men and real fighters.

Out here in billets, we get a deal more information about things generally than ever reaches us in the line. All the rumours come our way, and among 'em, here and there, I dare say, hints of the truth. We know that out there in the new trench we cut no dug-outs are being made. There's no evidence of any intention to inhabit that new front line. It is just fully manned by night and held by a few sentry groups in the day. (It's a deuce of a job getting along it by night when it's full of men. Being kept so narrow, for safety's sake, there are not many places where you can pass men, so you have to get along somehow over their heads or between their legs. Oh, it's great going on a wet night!) And this, in our eyes, is proof positive of the truth of the rumour which says we are to use it almost immediately as a jumping-off place, in a push designed to strengthen and straighten our front line by cutting off that diabolical corner of the Boche line opposite The Gut; to wash out The Gut, in fact, altogether, putting it behind our front line, with all its blood-soaked craters.

I don't think I ought to write much about it, though I suppose the Censor won't mind so long as I mention no places or names to indicate the part of the front we're on. But, in effect, if we can take several hundred yards of Boche trenches here, the gain to us, apart altogether from strategic considerations, will be equivalent to at least a mile. It's much more than just that, really, because it means getting a very advantageous and commanding position in exchange for a very exposed and deadly one, depriving Boche of a great advantage and gaining a great advantage for ourselves. Even the lesser of the two possible schemes, concerning less than 200 yards of Boche front, would give us all that. But the general opinion seems to be that we are to tackle the larger scheme, involving the seizure of a good mile or more of Boche front. We all think we know, and we none of us know anything, really.

But I must clear out. We have a new issue of improved gas-helmets, and I've got to see to dishing 'em out. Then every man will have two anti-gas helmets and one pair of anti-lachrymatory gas goggles. We are also renewing our emergency, or "iron," ration—and that all looks like a push, and is therefore exhilarating.

Later.

Great and glorious news! The push is a fact. I mustn't say which day, and, just in case this letter fell into wrong hands, I think I'll hold it back, and not post just yet. The main thing is we are to push; and we are jolly well going to wipe out that Boche corner. It is the lesser of the two schemes—a local affair pure and simple, so I suppose you'll learn next to nothing about it from dispatches. You know our British way in the matter of official dispatches. The British have no shop window at all. One ought to be glad of it, I suppose. Ours is the safer, better, more dignified way, no doubt, and certainly never raises hopes doomed to possible disappointment. At the back of my mind I approve it all right. (Which should be comforting to the G.O.C. in C.) But, as touching ourselves, one cannot help wishing the dispatches would give you news of our show. Of course they won't.

"The night was quiet on the remainder of the Front." "Some elements of trenches changed hands in the neighbourhood of ——, the advantage being with us." That's the sort of thing. At least, I hope it'll read that way. It will, if "A" Company can make it so.

I'm particularly glad we had that turn in Petticoat Lane, you know. Now that I think we shall never occupy it again as a front line—by the time you get this, please the pigs, it'll be well behind our front line, and we'll be snugly over the rise where the Boche now shelters—I don't mind admitting to you that it's a heart-breaking bit of line. There's no solid foothold anywhere in it, and there's next to no real cover. It's a vile bit of trench, which we never should have occupied if we'd had any choice in those early days when the Boche first dug himself in opposite, and the French, having no alternative, scratched in here. For our sins we know every inch of it now, and, thanks to good glasses and long hours of study, I think I know the opposite lines pretty well—the lines I hope we shall be in.

Our fellows are queer, you know. Perhaps I've told you. Any kind of suffering and hardship they have to endure they invariably chalk up to the account against Mr. Boche. There's a big black mark against him for our spell in Petticoat Lane, and, by Jupiter! he'll find he'll have to pay for every mortal thing our chaps suffered there; every spoiled or missed meal; even lost boots, sore feet, and all such details. Our chaps make jokes about these things, and, if they're bad enough, make believe they almost enjoy them while they last. But every bit of it goes down in the account against Fritz; and if "A" Company gets the chance to be after him, by Gad! he'll have to skip! He really will.

I'm not going to risk giving away military information by telling you any more now. It will all be over, and Cut-Throat Alley will be behind us when next I write. And, understand, you are not to worry in the least bit about me, because I promise you I'll get through. I should know if I were not going to; at least, I think I should. But I feel perfectly certain we shall bring this thing off all right anyhow; and so, even if I did chance to go down, you wouldn't grieve about that, would you? because you'd know that's the way any fellow would like to go down, with his Company bringing it off; and, mind you, a thing that's going to make a world of difference to all the hundreds of good chaps who will hold this sector of the front before the war's over.

We've got a mighty lot to wipe out in this little push. It isn't only such scraps of discomfort as we suffered, nor yet the few men we lost there. But, French and British, month in and month out, for many a long day and night, we've been using up good men and true in that bloody, shell-torn corner. Why, there's not a yard of its churned-up soil that French and English men haven't suffered on. We've all that to wipe out; all that, and a deal more that I can't tell you about. I'll only tell you that I mean to get through it all right. Every man in the Battalion means real business—just as much as any of the chaps who fought under Nelson and Wellington, believe me. So, whatever you do, be under no sort of anxiety about your

"Temporary Gentleman."

P.S.—Seeing that you and I, and all our lot, never have known anything about military matters before this war came, I think it may interest you, as it interests me, to know that I have never seen the Company as a whole jollier, or in higher spirits than it is with this job before it; and, do you know, I never felt happier myself, never. I feel this makes it worth while to be alive and fit; more worth while than it ever was in civil life before the war.