October 17.

[Sidenote:  ARCHIE]

Yesterday some Hun aeroplanes got across and came right above this camp, a comfortable way behind the front line.  Heavily strafed by our Archies.  The blue sky was dotted all over with the pretty little white clouds of shrapnel.

Sergeant Pritchard and I were standing close to Flannagan (one of the men’s horses), and the men were at stables.  We were all looking up and longing to see a Hun aeroplane hit, when suddenly “s-s-s-swish, plop!” just behind me.  It was one of the Archie shrapnel cases.  It buried itself deep in the ground 3 yards from where we were standing.  We dug it up, and I’ll bring it home for you.  If it isn’t too tediously heavy.

Of course, Archie shrapnel cases all come down, and you see hundreds of them lying about; but I’ve never had one so close before.  They sometimes fall broadside on, and sometimes end on, in which case they bury themselves fairly deep.  All the Hun aeroplanes got away, alas!

October 26.

Once more I’m going up to the strange dead village of ——.  In many ways I shall be sorry to go back to comfort and billets, because the material for pictures here is very wonderful.  You shall see several small things (the powers that be call it waste of time!), and it’s infuriating to think that more can’t be done.

I tell you, if you were here, and if I could paint a bit every day, I should be quite happy.  The “subjects” are endless, and in particular I long to do great big stretches of this bleak brown land.  Well, it can’t be helped, so it’s no good thinking about it.

October 29.

We are moving to a “back area” to-morrow.

[Illustration:  A WOUNDED TANK This Tank got hit as it was walking over a house in FLERS.  They covered it up with tarpaulins to prevent the Hun aeroplanes from obtaining too much information about it.  The black stuff is shrapnel.  The pink clouds are sent up by crumps as they explode amongst the remains of the brick houses.]

November 1.

It’s a superb day, and we are back at ——­, one of our old billets, right away from the beastliness.  And although leave won’t be for another week or two, still, it will come soon.  And Swallow is in tremendous spirits.

Here is a drawing done surreptitiously of a tank in full view of Fritz.  You see those little stumps of trees?  Well, I’ll tell you what those are called when we meet, and also what village is just on their left.  You may say it was stupid to sit in full view of Fritz, but it was the day after an advance, and there’s hardly ever anything doing then in the way of sniping.  The guns, of course, are all pooping off, but they weren’t shelling just there, so it was quite safe.  This drawing gives you some idea of the desolation, but none of the unevenness of the ground.  You can’t walk in a bee-line for three yards without getting into a hole.  The last time I was in those parts, by the way, I came on a rather jolly cottage wineglass that had been thrown out into some soft mud, and was not even cracked.