No. 15

S.I.F
B.E.F

Dec. 30th 1939.

My Darling,

Thank you so much for your letter which I received last night. I do hope you and Jill enjoyed your Christmas with Jack and Joan. We managed to have quite a good one but I missed you both unbearably.

I was so glad you were pleased with my news. I love what you say regarding my possible form of address. You’re a dear little silly.

It’s very sweet of Wyn to take an interest in me. I believe she knows that I think she is a rather fine person and there is certainly no-one whom I would rather you had living with you.

For the last three days we have been very busy. You will remember that we have been moving from Gun Position to Gun Position at intervals of a few weeks; this had resulted in no-one taking an especial pride, either in ones billets or in the gun position itself because one knows that in a week or so one would move out and another section…

…would move in and alter everything.

Now however we are at last going to have a permanent gun position and permanent billets. Accordingly we have been very busy. There are fourteen in the billet I shall be in, it is in a loft in very good condition and only one rat hole. There is a certain amount of grain in sacks in the loft and these we have moved so they are right over the rat hole, working on the theory that if we put Mr Rat’s dinner right on the doorstep he will not bother to come any further in.

The farm itself is fairly large and the farm people themselves, a mother and grown up son and daughter, are really charming. The son, himself a soldier, made us a little speech of welcome, saying that we were his comrades and that there wasn’t anything in the world that his mother and sister wouldn’t do for us (Quiet Wyn). Already before we have even moved in they have given us a stove, a table, a form, and a large tarpaulin. Mother says that if we want any milk we shall have to appoint a gunner milkman.

I think our billets should prove the most comfortable in the village, we shall have to repay madame by doing odd jobs for her about the farm.

The other night I had quite an adventure (for the befit of the censor, information gathered from this source is sub judice and ultra vires).

About midnight there was a terrific crash outside our billets and then silence. Most of us just turned over and went to sleep again but in a little while there came a terrific pounding on the front door. No one seemed very interested.

Eventually as it didn’t stop I decided to go downstairs, where I discovered that three Frenchmen in a saloon car had crashed into the back of our lorry and smashed their radiator etc to smithereens. By this time Mac, one of our drivers, had joined us and we decided to tow them to their destination 50 odd kilometers distant.

Their NCO went with Mac in the cab of the lorry, I in the car with one of the Frenchmen, and the other one travelled outside in the lorry. It was snowing hard and he (the first Frenchman) was from the Midi and had never seen snow before.

In due course we arrived at our destination and were regaled with garlic sausage and chocolate washed down with liquid fire (name unknown). When we arrived at the billets most of the froggies were asleep—in bedroom mattresses, between sheets. Mac went up and felt the sheet between finger and thumb.

Our…

French friend hastened to explain them “dans l’armee Francais tres exceptionnelle.”

We replied “In the English army, bloody unheard of.”

By this time it was well after one but were we to be allowed to go home, certainly not. The next item on the agenda seemed to be a trip over a sugar beet factory, a very large one, employing two or three hundred people and going full blast. We were shown the sugar at each stage of its progress, from the sugar beet itself until eventually we were invited to taste the finished article, warm, granulated. It was really very interesting.

Eventually we got home about three o’clock without anyone finding out—all very irregular.

Well darling farewell for a little while. I feel convinced we shall be together agains very soon.

All my love,

Kenneth.