Letters From the Front

Dated: March 5, 1916

We are in a state of turmoil to-day as we were going to move back to our old position to-night, when, 'at the eleventh hour,' the order was countermanded on account of an expected attack here to-night. Let them rip! We can hold them here all right, as we can give 'Old Fritzie' twenty Hate-slabs to his one at any time at this point. I got my Webley Service .455 revolver sent out from home the other day and lots of 'pills,' so am fully prepared to be generous in distribution! We had a scrap the other night in conjunction (Bluff !) with a counter attack of ours further north, and about 2 a.m. we let loose with all guns in the vicinity. At the same time the infantry put over a huge volume of smoke (just to kid Heine along) and opened rapid fire with rifles and machine-guns. Needless to say the lines of communication were soon broken, and as I was up in the forward observing station in the front line, I had to 'get out and get under.' Well, the line was broken about 60 yards behind the front line parados, and as the night was as dark as soot I had a lively 15 minutes. I started off O.K., and then one of Fritz's machine-guns began to make itself obnoxious. I made a wild plunge for what I thought to be a whizz-bang shell hole and found myself 'carrying on,' so to speak. Instead of being a shell hole it was a 10 ft. deep communication trench with two feet of soft 'SLUSH.' Talk about Turkish baths! I came up looking like an apology for a mud-turtle. I've never been so 'slushy' in my natural before, and sincerely hope I never will be again! The worst was, when I got in after fixing the breaks and crawled into our first-line observation post, instead of being greeted with sympathetic remarks and a 'shot' of rum, I got nothing but shrieks of laughter for about 15 minutes! A joke is all right in the right place, but—!! I got a new uniform out of it, anyway, which is some consolation.

We gave Fritz a right royal time for two solid hours, and he only found enough energy to put over a feeble retaliation with a few 'pip squeaks' (also called whizz-bangs) (77 mm.) which did no damage. We hadn't a single casualty. I suppose you saw the result of the counter-attack in the papers. It was quite successful, which is all I can tell you.

I expect we'll move soon, if nothing comes off. I don't think the Boches can break through, down south, now that they failed in their first 'strafe.'