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[Page 37]
The telescope and lo you have the scene before you and what a desolate one it is.
In the foreground are dozens of houses all in different stages of being blown to bits, and assuming some most grotesque shapes. Here also on Observatory Hill to the left, nature has certainly done some wonderful patch-work, hiding up some of the gaping holes with foliage, but Mount Sorrell, the centre of the picture is like a huge heap of rubbish, wrecked dugouts, endless shell holes, large minecraters and parapets blown to bits are all mixed up in a most chaotic manner to make up this hill actually graced by a name. To the right the trenches run in front of a wood, and what a wood it is bare and blackened by endless shell fire and with its trees standing straight and black against the corners to act as a table, the telescope poking out near his right hand and a hot cup of tea that the telephonist has brought up near his left hand, and surround this image with loose bricks, broken beams, twisted iron, and the stub of a chimney with the top blown off as the foreground and you will have a picture of "yours truly" observing on the western front. I am sharing a dugout here with Corporal Miller the A.M.C. Corporal attached to the battery, and we have some great games of chess. My bed is an A.M.C. stretcher which I found up at O.P. and every night we have a fire and supper consists of cocoa and biscuits or cake. The most elaborate dish we have had as yet consisted of crushed blackberries and condensed milk which went mighty well. There is a canteen and the Y.M C.A. nearby, the latter having a library which of course we patronise. Yesterday a circular from G.H.Q. called for volunteers for commissions in the R.F.C. so I promptly put my name down for it although I am afraid there is no chance, however, I wrote to Grandma asking her to find out from Colonel Byne if I could get an ordinary transfer as a Pte.
Friday 22nd. We have now to observe from the front line of trenches, and so I went there to day with Mr.Osborne and came away with a still greater respect for the infantry for to live there for seven days during bad weather as they have to do is to have the most cheerful of spirits thoroughly squashed. At one part our front