despatched. Father said
that one of my letters was heavily censored lately, but the censor was
myself. I think I explained that I write my letters in a book now, and
fill everything in the form of a diary and send the duplicate on to
you censored by myself.

I received the parcel of socks all right, and thanked you for them in
a letter written in March. Socks are always welcome to the men. I keep
about 15 pairs for myself, and the men like as many as they can get.
At last we have got away from the Bomb School. We moved back to our
Brigade a few days ago (May 3rd) to the billet we were in before at
Eperlecques, only to move off again the next day in the afternoon.

Kitty and I went into St. Omer for tea and to get our hair cut, to get
mess things, fruit, &c. We started to walk about seven or eight miles
on a scorchingly hot day, but fortunately managed to go almost all the
way in two ambulances we commandeered.

We had a very pleasant time, and then went to the canteen and bought
stuff, which our servants took away in a handcart. Then we went and
had our hair cut, and I bought a new auto-strop safety razor as a
birthday present to myself. After we had done everything we wanted we
went down to the station to meet our batteries, who had marched in
with Brigade Headquarters, and for three hours we messed about,
shoving great lorries on to trucks by hand, and then while we had
dinner (an omelette) in quite an English buffet, our men brewed tea in
a large loading shed. And, finally, at 11-15 our men bundled into the
usual trucks, labelled Hommes 32-40 Chevaux (en long) 8 (1 horse--4
men), while Kitty and I had a French second class carriage, in which
we slept fitfully, and ate chocolate biscuits and oranges
intermittently throughout the night.

The next morning we arrived at a station near Amiens and proceeded to
unload g.s. waggons, &c., again. When that was finished we marched a
mile down the road and halted for breakfast. We had ours in an
estaminet--coffee, omelette, &c. After breakfast I went to the river
and had a topping bathe; no weeds or anything to trouble you, only two
garrulous old French soldiers, who stood on the bank and watched and
gave me encouragement. At about 11-0 we set off. A blazing hot, dusty
day, pushing handcarts about 12 miles, without any lunch, and arrived
at St. Gratien at about 5-0. Arrived there we found Wren, the Brigade
Signal Officer, absolutely at sea as to where our billets were, so we