⸺ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 | ᶜᵃᵉˢᵃʳ ˣ ʳᵉᵃᵈᵉʳ [ᵘᵃ]

𝐌𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐞...

Bourges,

May 19, 1917

My little wife,

I am writing to you today after having finally received and opened your pretty letter and after having finally found the time to answer you between an assault and a light meal consisting of only a small bowl of soup chilled in a damaged container and a piece of bread dried up by the dampness of the trenches.

Yesterday I finally got out of the front line, after having seen dozens see hundreds of soldiers fall in front of me at my feet, after having received shrapnel in the face or after having been riddled with bullets from German machine guns. I watched them crash hard to the ground in mud and puddles, at those exact moments my heart sank sharply, telling me that they may never have been able to write to their good woman like I am doing. Yesterday, on the front line, I was shot in the foot by a stray bullet which cost me a trip to the back line for treatment.

The nights in the trenches, no matter in which lines it is, are very hard. We sometimes don't sleep and spend our sleeping hours shivering under our thin layers of clothing in the dampness of the night. The only light blanket I had got nibbled on by surely hungry rats, probably finding nothing edible to eat. I remember that in the second line, a friend had his ear eaten. Poor guy, I still remember his cries when he woke up, a rat hanging from his earlobe. It was hilarious although it must not have been very pleasant.

If you knew in what conditions I live and I sleep, you would put yourself in all your states my poor wife. I doze in my olive green uniform without the slightest trace of comfort and hygiene. My wide-brimmed helmet is dented by my falls in the mud to protect me from the shells thrown by the Boschs from the other side of the front. They are armed to the teeth and surely provide a stock of ammunition ten times higher than ours. If you ask me, we'll be dry soon.

Every time the sergeant whistles as loud as he can for the start of the assault, I'll admit I'm shaking, my hands, my whole body are shaking at the thought of leaving or returning to the front. It terrifies me. Seeing my friends all falling one by one to bombs and machine gun fire makes me want to turn back and get as far away from this place as possible. The barbed wire sometimes prevents us from advancing as we would like. Some have already got stuck in it and even sometimes planted in their hand, impossible for them to get out, they were caught in the face of explosions or a bullet between their eyes.

I am writing this note to you under the curious gaze of my colleague who asks me to whom I am writing while smiling so stupidly. He surely thinks that this letter is going to reach my mother, but he is wrong, it is going to reach you, my dear (tp). When I see some of us not getting any letters, probably having no wives or kids, maybe no more family... I think I'm lucky to have you, you and your letters with sweet and caring words.

I miss you a lot my darling, your little dishes, each more exquisite than the other, would gladly replace our bowls of cold soup and our pieces of dry bread. I love you very much and don't be afraid, I will come home.

Caesar Antonio Zeppeli