We have had a pretty rough time lately. Last night was the first for ten days that I have had a roof over my head. The weather has been atrocious—pouring rain and driving, cutting snow—but it did not get through my overcoat, which is richly caked with mud. We have had a fortnight's fighting and have marched back now from the firing line for a short rest to refit. It meant two days' marching through roads and fields ankle deep in clinging, porridgy mud, but we were all glad enough to put up with any hardship so long as we got away from the strain of flying shells and bullets. In the trenches we lost some more of our men, but not many. I just wish you could see our battalion now; what a change from the crowd that used to march through London. Every man, almost, has a beard, and you could not imagine the dirty, bedraggled crowd we are. The strain of watching through the night in the trenches is pretty awful. The nights were pitch black, and the rain came pouring down, making the trenches an awful mess.

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