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[Page 47]
forth by what you've written: you ask whether I make any good friends in the regiment.
No, I don't: lots of acquaintances whom one likes to meet, but nobody intimately enough for friendship: I find it easy enough to get to know cheery fellows and it all helps to pass away the time: but one does not miss or regret them in the very least if you don't see them again.
There is not much social side to life in the field: one rarely goes, indeed is rarely asked, to go over and visit or feed with other units: I generally have a couple of whiskies and smoke a good deal: one also develops the power of sitting still for long periods of time doing nothing and thinking of nothing: the life succeeds in killing all ones nervous energy, whether it will revive after the war is a matter for conjecture, but one must try and get going again.
I had a very comfortable three months in England although my hours were long when working at St. John's Wood Barracks training gunner cadets to be officers: but although I was at first glad to be in England, I hadn't been there a month before I felt rather ashamed of myself for taking on soft jobs – and I shall still feel the same until I've done some penance out here again and then I suppose one will try to go back