Last night I had to take some ammunition (200 rounds) up to the trenches, also two dug-out frames and 2,000 sandbags; we get through in the battery about 500 sandbags a day. They are brought up to the dump, and from there we push them up tramway lines on trucks, across the open up to the firing line, and then along it in the open behind to the place where they are wanted. Stray bullets and machine guns make it rather exciting; we had one man wounded--the bullet went right through his calf just about half an inch under the skin, a tiny little wound, but he will only be a few days. I hope Amy is quite better again.
I was made a First Lieutenant on March 1st. It is possible that I may be made a Captain sometime in the future. There is talk of making all Battery Commanders Captains. I am afraid that soon we will be moving further south; we are very comfortable here, and I am enjoying myself greatly. I am not feeling up to writing much; I am going to read or sleep.
Much love to all, from your loving Son, ALEC.
101/1 TRENCH MORTAR BATTERY, 101ST BRIGADE, B.E.F. Wednesday.
I did not quite know what was the meaning of the telegram the other day. It was dated April 1st, which made me rather suspicious, and it did not arrive here till April 4th. I wired immediately, but it is difficult to do so; I wrote last Sunday and once the week before; I hope you have received them all right. You can be quite happy about me now, as after this afternoon I shall be quite safe for some time. This afternoon I had my first real taste of heavy shell fire, and I was glad to find that I did not object to it half as much as I thought I should. We were doing a pre-arranged strafe into a German salient--two trench mortar batteries and all our artillery on to their first and second lines, &c. We put over about 4,000 lbs. of shells from the two mortar batteries in ten minutes and absolutely crumpled about 150 yards of their trenches. There is no trench there now--just a mass of earth, great girders, pointing jauntily skywards, timbers drooping over where the parapet was, and the front of the trench, where any remains, leaning in a tired fashion against the back of it. Of course, directly we started the Germans got going with all their artillery at us. "Jack Johnsons," so-called howitzers--I have never heard such a noise. I was observing in our salient; they had cleared all the infantry out except the machine guns. I had my eyes glued to a periscope, and never noticed most of the stuff coming over till I had to go along a deserted trench to give orders to my guns, and they put over in one place four shells from big howitzers into the stream within 10 yards of me. I enjoyed it; it was topping to see the Bosche parapet crumpling away, lighted every half second or so with a weird flash, covered with smoke, and the earth rocking with the concussion. They must have lost a lot of men; we lost only about three killed and a dozen or so wounded, none in my battery I am glad to say. In about half an hour all was quiet again, and I was observing the damage through a topping periscope, which magnifies ten times, when I saw four German officers crawling among the debris and distinctly saw them from the waist upwards. I had no rifle worse luck, and when I found a sniper they had gone. Fancy missing four German officers. They had grey uniforms and grey caps on and Sam Browne belts. That is what we have been working for, for the last week making emplacements to guard against their shells. At present we are rather being messed about; we are supposed to be going back for about a month's rest, which no one wants--a rest means twice as much work as you do in the trenches, and no excitement. After that we shall probably go to somewhere unpleasant. We are being relieved here by men who were in the same place as Lovel.