It is good food, and I have heard men exclaim that it was better than anything they had had at home.  After investigation I usually found that the men who dilated thus on the gastronomic delights of billets were married men!

The authorities are just as careful about sending up a soldier’s letters, his parcels and small gifts from home, as they are about the food and clothing supplies.  They recognize that Tommy Atkins naturally and rightly wants to keep in touch with the home folks, and every effort is made to get communications up on time.  But war is war, and there are days and even weeks when no letters reach the front line.  Those are the days that try the mettle of the men.  We do not tell our thoughts to one another.  The soldier of to-day is rough of exterior, rough of speech and rough of bearing, but underneath he has a heart of gold and a spirit of untold gentleness.

We play poker, and we play with the sky the limit.  Why not?  Active service allowance is thirty francs a month—­five dollars.  Why put on any limit?  You may owe a man a hundred, or even two hundred dollars, but what’s the difference?—­a shell may put an end to you, him and the poker board any old minute.  There is no knowing.

Weeks pass and no letters.  We play more wildly, squatting down in the mud with the board before us.  I have sometimes seen a full house, a straight, three of a kind, or probably four big ones.  “I raise you five,” says Bill.  Bang!—­a whiz bang explodes twenty yards away.  “I raise you ten.”  Bang!—­a wee willie takes the top off the parapet.  “There’s your ten, and ten better.”  Crash!—­and several bits of shrapnel probably go through the board.  “You’re called.  Gee, but that was a close one!  Deal ’em out, Peat.”

Suddenly down the trench will pass the word that the officer and sergeant are coming with letters and parcels.  We kick the poker board high above the trench, cards and chips flying in all directions.  No one cares, even though he’s had a hand full of aces.  The letters are in, and every man is dead sure there will be one for him.

We crowd around the officer with shining eyes like so many schoolboys.  Parcels are handed out first, but we throw these aside to be opened later, and snatch for the letters.  But luck is not always good to all of us, and possibly it will be old Bill who has to turn away empty-handed and alone.  No letter.  Are they all well, or—­no letter.

But Bill is not left alone very long.  A pal will notice him, notice him before he himself has had more than a glimpse of the heading of his own precious letter, and going over to Bill, will slap him a hearty blow on the shoulder and say:  “Say, Bill, old boy, I’ve got a letter.  Listen to this—­” And then, no matter how sacred the letter may be, he will read it aloud before he has a chance to glance at it himself.  If it is from the girl, old Bill will be laughing before it is finished—­girls write such amusing stuff; but, no matter whom it is from, it is all the same.  It is a pleasure shared, and Bill forgets his trouble in the happiness of another.