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My dear ones,

The news of Grandpa's death was very sudden. I'm sorry. This course is going to last about six weeks, I think. At present we haven't got beyond flags and the buzzer (that's a kind of dummy Morse key and sounder, something like the thing at railway stations). They require every man in the section - that's 26 in each battalion - to read 14 words a minute on the buzzer, and 20 from the officers. As a matter of fact, that's not as difficult as you might think at first; 25 is the usual Post Office rate of sending, and 32 the expert's absolute limit.

It's interesting work, and I like it immensely. We do two hours flag-drill in the morning (Morse), and then buzzer and technical lectures; in the afternoon we do station-work in the field. The class is broken up into "stations" of 3 men, who go out and take up positions so as to form a long chain 3 or 4 miles long, and practise sending messages right through from end to end.

The three men work like this. At a sending terminal one man holds the message and calls it out word by word (the Caller); another sends it as called (the Sender), and the third watches the distant station for the answer (the Answer-Reader). At a receiving terminal the Caller becomes the Writer, taking down the message letter by letter from the Reader, who keeps his glasses fixed on the distant station. At the end of every word the Reader calls "Group", the Writer, if satisfied, says "Yes" to the third man (the Answerer), who accordingly acknowledges. It's very fasinating to watch good station-work, and surprising how smoothly and accurately it can be done. Of course the same system works if we are using telegraph or buzzer.

Later on we shall get to lamps, helios, signalling-discs, and field-telephones, but we haven't touched them yet . There's one thing - I shall always be able to get a job as a telegraphist when war is over!

I hate to disillusion you, but the Signal Officer doesn't do anything so picturesquely foolish as waving flags on the top of a conspicous hill between the two armies. It makes a good illustration, but it's really not done by the best people. What he does far more often is to crouch in a flooded dug-out controlling a complicated commutator with scores of lines on it, like a girl at the Telephone Exchange, and swearing because the line to Brigade Headquarters leaks in about seven places (what with being laid through pools of water and walked by men passing up and down the trenches) and the current isn't strong enough to work the key; or cursing the men at a distant station for rotten sending.

On the whole it's a safe but very responsible and trying job. You see, the Lieutenant of Signals in a battalion is responsible for maintaining communicaton at all times from his Bn. Hdqrs. to the Brigade, to the component companies of his battalion, and to the units on either flank, and to establish the necessary stations accordingly. A few of his other duties are to know, at all times of the day and night, the position and station-call of the Brigade Headquarters signal section and of all the units of the Force, and of any other unit with which communication might at any time conceivably be required, and the intentions and plans of his Commanding Officer. (2nd Lieut. to Colonel: "I must request you, Sir to explain all your private intentions in full to me at once". Colonel: "?!!??!!" Tableau.) He must also keep the Brigade Signal Officer informed as to the the movements of his own battalion, or when any particular line of communication breaks down, and other useful information.

So you see it's a responsible job, which might at any time suddenly become all-important. "The Signal Service," as the book rather pompously says, "is the nerves of an army, without which activity is impossible". On the whole, as I say, it's a safe job (from its very importance, it has to be protected), though quite exciting. Occasionally, of course, it emerges from a kind of underground safety and obscurity right into the limelight; then it's "some job," and gets thrills enough to satisfy the most reckless glory-hunters. Laying a fresh cable between outpost positions under fire, for instance, can be a ticklish enough bit of work, or when your insulation fails (as it often does in the exposed conditions in which cables lie) and you have to go out repair it, or worse still have to take to flags and come right out into the open. Still, they tell us that a flag has hardly been seen at the front yet; it's all buzzer and field-telephone work.

Did you hear of the women in Suffolk who, being congratulated by the Rector on her son's enlistment, said, "Well, sir, 'twas only to be expected; for after all what does the Scripture say but, 'Train up a child, and away he do go.'"

I've heard unofficially that I'm up before Headquarters for a second star and a full lieutenancy; I hope it'll make good. Watch the 'Times' in about a month's time. If I'm gazetted I'll apply for a month's leave on the spot!

All my love.