heepskin will probably be most useful if I can wear
and carry it, but it has its difficulties. Thank the children for
their cards, please....

IN BILLETS.
_December 27th, 1914._

Our strange sort of armistice continued throughout yesterday. The
Germans told us they were all Landwehr men, and therefore not obliged
to fight outside Germany except as volunteers, and that they did not
intend to fight at present. Sure enough, though we shelled them and
fired at them with rifles, they paid not the slightest attention.
Whilst the shelling was on, they dodged down in their trenches, and
popped up again when it was over. We hit one with a rifle, but as they
would not reply, we felt rather mean and fired over their heads. The
relieving regiment [Lincolnshire], of which Mr. Brown of South
Collingham is a member, said they would not go on like this. Curiously
enough, they have done so. Leaving our trenches, we marched away
gaily, getting in here about eight o'clock, or a little later. Had
something to eat; then I crawled between my blankets, having, as
usual, been up just before 5 o'clock the previous night. At 10.30 p.m.
we were waked by a message: "The Germans are attacking at midnight. A
deserter has just come in to say so." Out we turned immediately, and
marched in very cold weather to a certain point. There we halted; our
guns had already opened a dreadful fire on the ground where the enemy
must have been assembling his assaulting columns. Apparently this took
the heart out of him, for the attack did not come off. I very much
thought that this night would probably be my last. However, about 2.30
a.m. we decided to put the men into any ruins near us, and after
stopping for some time in a blacksmith's shop seated on a sheaf of
straw, I managed to get into a room with a concrete floor, and went to
sleep there, having borrowed a sort of thin wrap from a Frenchman and
put a sack over my feet to keep them from freezing. About 6.15 a.m.
the Frenchman gave us some warm milk, and I was able to give him in
return some of your excellent chocolate, whilst we also partook of it
too. By 8 o'clock we were back in our billets. I had luncheon with my
own General (Brigadier-General Lowry Cole). I hear that the enemy are
walking about again on their parapets--refusing to fight. Church this
morning in the unruined chapel of a small convent which has esc