a sleeping bag, in which
much of our stuff is packed, and a kit sack--for an immediate change and
toilet articles one carries a haversack hung across the shoulder. Well,
as I say, we alighted and coaxed a military wagon to come to our rescue.
As we set off through a drizzling rain, trudging behind the cart, a
double rainbow shone, which I took for an omen. Presently we came to a
rest camp, where we told our sad story of empty tummies, and were put up
for the night. A Jock--all Highlanders are called Jock--looked after us.
Next morning we started out afresh in a motor lorry and finished at a
Y.M.C.A. tent, where we stayed two nights. On Wednesday we met the
General in Command of our Division, who posted me to the battery, which
is said to be the best in the best brigade in the best division--so you
may see I'm in luck. I found the battery just having come out of
action--we expect to go back again in a day or two. Major B. is the
O.C.--a fine man. The lieutenant who shares my tent won the Military
Cross at Ypres last Spring. I'm very happy--which will make you
happy--and longing for my first taste of real war.

How strangely far away I am from you--all the experiences so unshared
and different. Long before this reaches you I shall have been in action
several times. This time three years ago my streak of luck came to me
and I was prancing round New York. To-day I am much more genuinely happy
in mind, for I feel, as I never felt when I was only writing, that I am
doing something difficult which has no element of self in it. If I come
back, life will be a much less restless affair.

This letter! I can imagine it being delivered and the shout from whoever
takes it and the comments. I make the contrast in my mind--this little
lean-to spread of canvas about four feet high, the horse-lines, guns,
sentries going up and down--and then the dear home and the well-loved
faces.

Good-bye. Don't be at all nervous.
Yours lovingly,
Con.

X

September 12th, Tuesday.

DEAREST M.:

You will already have received my first letters giving you my address
over here. The wagon has just come up to our position, but it has
brought me only one letter since I've been across. I'm sitting in my
dug-out with shells passing over my head with the sound of ripping
linen. I've already had the novel experience of firing a battery, and
to-morrow I go up to the first line trenches.

It's