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My dear ones,

Thank you for the sheets and honey. Both arrived safely; lucky, because if they hadn't there would have been a nice mess!

When I verified my time-table with a new Bradshaw in the train after leaving you, I found that the day service between Fishguard and Rosslare has been suspended since the outbreak of war. So we had just time to send an pologetic message to Edith and then buzz straight across London to Paddington in time to catch the night boat-train. We had a good crossing and reached Fermoy very tired at 9 in the morning; so I had a bath in the hotel and went straight to bed till the evening, before I went on up to the camp. Finn* was very fed up with trains and boats and strange people, but he is settling down quite well now, and is very healthy and very much loved.

We are moving to Salisbury Plain as a Division. The guns go on the 29th, but we don't follow till August 16th. It's a pity it isn't Aldershot; much nearer London.

I found the Brigade Office had mysteriously presented us with two magnificent new telephone sets in my absence. The only difficulty was that they were the new Ericsson pattern instead of the old ones, and no one had dared take them out of their cases for fear of smashing them!

I was talking to a snot back from the Front on the boat. He was lying at the point of death, gassed and all but unconscious, with just enough energy to beckon feebly to a chaplain, who came doubling up to shrive him before he passed. The padre bent over to listen, and a faint whisper came, "Sergeant, tell our ........s to keep a ....... sharp look-out for those German .......s over there." Collapse of zealous Chaplain.

Did you get "Rank at a glance" that I sent you? You'll find it instructive in these days.

All my love.

* His bull-terrier