To his sister Mary Capell
Mar 29 [1916]
[N.D. de Lorette]
My dear Mary:
If I have been remiss in not writing, put it down to my occupations
– I have spent all my spare time in baling out my dug-out & in efforts
at repairing its roof. How disappointing are these deferred promises of
spring! One day brings a delicious hour or two, & the next torrents of rain
– if not snow. Half the dug-outs in this village of dug-outs are
flooded – five or six feet deep, often. The habitable ones want
looking after every day. Of course there is not a roof intact within
unless the difference between this place & the next is that here there is
an occasional wall standing, & also the majestic ruin of a church, while
there is nothing but a rubbish heap. Our village is traversed by line after
line of old trenches, & there are shell-holes by the ten thousand. On the
hills are scattered the bones of hundreds & thousands of the unburied dead. By
chance I saw yesterday in an old trench human leg-bones in a pair of German
boots. The sight of this valley! – – It gives Armageddon a
spectacular look that it hasn't in the flat country northwards. You can
see for such distances, too. It is amazing & tremendous that the French
managed to take this ground.
My dug-out is German-built, & there are plenty of German inscriptions to
be read here & there. Really the worst of the place is the rats –
that swarm both indoors & out. After dark you tread among them, & they
squeak like birds wherever you go. I foresee the time when the enfeebled
British & German forces will have to combine against the rat peril. –
Save for a little perfunctory artillery fire, (they scatter shrapnel over
us once or twice a day – quite harmless), the front is quiet, but
from what I have seen I have a faint idea of the inferno that this place
once was. The little German cemeteries here had their crosses riddled or
blown away, & sometimes whole graves too, by their own shell-fire.
How sorry I am that Mother has had such a bad touch of influ! –
Thank you much, my dear, for your letter; and I hope you get a bit of a
holiday. The parcels are much appreciated. I will write to Marge. Voi
gets a place of honour now on all the B.E.A. maps! I can't help feeling
decidedly anxious about Grandfather. How I hope the fine weather hastens
to put in an appearance. There are actually a few daffodils out in our
back-garden; gooseberry bushes too seem to escape the shells in some
numbers. The orchard trees are mostly killed if not actually cut to the
ground.
Goodbye, my dear. Believe me that I am well & cheerful. Your Richard
It is possible that when we are back in reserve I may be able to call on
the Tiry's again.