XLIII

January 31st, 1917.

DEAR MR. AND MRS. M.:

It was extremely good of you to remember me. I got back from leave in
London on the 26th and found the cigarettes waiting for me. One hasn't
got an awful lot of pleasures left, but smoking is one of them. I feel
particularly doggy when I open my case and find my initials on them.

I expect you'll have heard all the news of my leave long before this
reaches you. We had a splendid time and the greatest of luck. My sailor
brothers were with me all but two days, and my people were in England
only a few days before I arrived.

This is a queer adventure for a peaceable person like myself--it blots
out all the past and reduces the future to a speck. One hardly hopes
that things will ever be different, but looks forward to interminable
years of carrying on. My leave rather corrected that frame of mind; it
came as a surprise to be forced to realise that not all the world was
living under orders on woman less, childless battlefields. But we don't
need any pity--we manage our good times, and are sorry for the men who
aren't here, for it's a wonderful thing to have been chosen to
sacrifice and perhaps to die that the world of the future may be happier
and kinder.