People over here who have boys at the front mustn't forget the
cigarette supply. Send them along early and often. There'll never
be too many. Smoking is one of the soldier's few comforts. Two
bits' worth of makin's a week will help one lad make life
endurable. It's cheap at the price. Come through for the smoke
fund whenever you get the chance.

Café life among us at Petite-Saens was mostly drinking and
gambling. That is not half as bad as it sounds. The drinking was
mostly confined to the slushy French beer and vin blanc and citron.
Whiskey and absinthe were barred.

The gambling was on a small scale, necessarily, the British soldier
not being at any time a bloated plutocrat. At the same time the
games were continuous. "House" was the most popular. This is a game
similar to the "lotto" we used to play as children. The backers
distribute cards having fifteen numbers, forming what they call a
school. Then numbered cardboard squares are drawn from a bag, the
numbers being called out. When a number comes out which appears on
your card, you cover it with a bit of match. If you get all your
numbers covered, you call out "house", winning the pot. If there
are ten people in at a franc a head, the banker holds out two
francs, and the winner gets eight.

It is really quite exciting, as you may get all but one number
covered and be rooting for a certain number to come. Usually when
you get as close as that and sweat over a number for ten minutes,
somebody else gets his first. Corporal Wells described the game as
one where the winner "'ollers 'ouse and the rest 'ollers 'ell!"