I will continue writing to your family if you all wish. I have a family that I am writing to, but they also have other soldiers. My sister's husband is in another regiment and she is writing to him daily it seems. My mother writes to me as often as she can with a young boy running around London during the war. There's not much time between them to write to me. I'm glad I don't hear from them often though, it means that at least the rest of my family is living their lives while I'm in the trenches. I would hate it if they stopped their lives to worry about me. I told them I would be fine, no matter what happens.
I've also included more of Lance Corporal Blake's possessions. I had not gone back to my regiment when I first wrote you, so I hadn't known what else he would have in his pack. You can find them in the envelope with this letter. I'm sorry that I couldn't send them back sooner, I wanted to write to you and give you the news before the officers, but it seemed it didn't matter anyway. The officers have a way with words that are harsh. We have officers in the trenches that tell the soldiers of the regiment who has died in the battle, and who has just been wounded. It's never as comforting as a soldier wants.
I'm sorry the soldiers weren't much comfort. Many of us don't know the feeling of comfort anymore. We don't receive it over here in France. Most of the soldiers that are required to deliver the news to fallen soldier families are the soldiers that are sent back because they broke. They're the worst to give the news to families like yours, but they are the only ones that are able to be away from the war, and still have the confidential information that an officer has. I hope that you got more than just closure from my letter, than theirs. I tried to give you as much comfort as I knew how through a letter. Your mother doesn't deserve to lose a son as young as Blake. I wish the Germans knew what the saying 'age before beauty' meant. I said that to Blake before we left the trenches. God, I wish the Germans heard me.
It's a bad day today. There's no sun, the smoke from the guns are blocking the little sun we get. It's been raining for the past few days before today as well. The amount of mud that is now embedded in my clothes is making it hard to bend my knees. Most of the soldiers can't even imagine going home today, since we can't see the sun. It's always worse on the days that there is no sun. The sun is the only joy we have here in the trenches. It's the only thing we can look forward to. When the German's gunsmoke covers the sun, we truly see no hope in ever getting out of there and home. We sit in the cold and the mud, making wagers that we'll never see through. Some soldiers sleep throughout the entire day, it gives comfort to sleep. We don't feel ourselves losing hope when we're asleep. On dark days such as today, soldiers take bets on who is going to die that day. Today, I bet on myself.
Sometimes, when I'm in the trenches, I look to my left expecting Blake to be there. I don't think it has settled that he's actually gone and that I'll never have to follow him on a journey to get his rations because he'll somehow knock someone over and they'll want to fight him. I was so busy thinking about getting to your other brother, it didn't settle. Then I was in the medical tent getting hounded questions about what hurts and if I had any bullets in me. I didn't even know where it hurt, I was so numb. I had a bullet in my leg that I hadn't even known. Then I had the journey back to make. It only settles at night, when I'm at a fire, or hearing screams and I turn to talk to Blake and it's a new soldier. I'm sorry that it wasn't me. I would do anything to be in Blake's place right now.
I apologize for my rashness. I feel as if I can share more of what I am feeling candidly than with my family. My mother worries, far too much for me to ever tell her the full truth of what I feel. Besides, I don't think she'll even remember who Blake is. I've told her at least six times and each new letter, she asks about the country boy that I sit by. You, however, seem to be easy to open to, easy to express how I am actually feeling. So, it seemed befitting that today, the day I feel at my lowest, I write to you, Mary. It eases me, as the smoke is over our head and the shots are fired over our heads, that I write to someone safe at home. Someone who is in England, on an orchard, with their parents and their brother on a boat, heading for his family home.
Tell me about your home. If you will. I know you live in an orchard. Blake told me that he and Joseph used to pick the cherries from the trees at harvest. Can you see the orchard from your house or is there a walk that you enjoy taking part in every time you must go to the Orchard? I live on a small farm with my family and the walk to the pasture where the horses are gives me little time to spend with my thoughts. That walk is what I imagine when I'm walking to my post in the trenches. It eases me little, but the ease it does give me helps me get there in one piece. It helps me fight the urge to jump into No Man's Land.
Please write me, it's all that is keeping me alive,
