Road To War

28th December

Gosh, so much happened. The very,very,very worst thing. Is that Papa has been badly injured and is in hospital in France.Mimi is going wild with worry.

"If only Charles had stayed in London," she moaned to my Aunt Leonora, who's here for Christmas and New Year."Why did he go to war?He was working for the government.He didn't need to go to France.Why?Your Cecil has stayed."

Aunt Leonora said firmly,"My husband has a bad chest.You're his sister,so you know that very well.Anyway,he's doing important work here.I know I'm lucky that he comes home to me every night,but you must remember that Charles felt he needed to go to war,"

"Aunt Leonora's right,Mimi," I said."Papa's frightfully patriotic."

"I know," she sighed."He's fighting for England."

I didn't argue,but I think she means he's fighting for France,because when all's said and done,that's where the Germans are doing their worst.At least I think it is.It's very confusing.I can't really tell whether they're in Belgium or France,to be honest.They have this imaginary line they call the "front" and that's where a lot of fighting is.Either way,the Germans shouldn't be in either France or Belgium.

Gosh,i hope they don't invade us! A battle at a place called Verdun, in France, ended only a week or so ago, and it had been going on since February! Imagine if that was happening her, in our peaceful corner of England. We've been lucky, so far, but i know there have been bombs dropped from aeroplanes on to London. And, of course, those hideous airships, the Zeppelins, have managed to bomb and kill nearly 300 people this year.

It seems a very dangerous sort of war.All the ones I've read of in history books have been about men on horseback making charges, and having skirmishes and what not. In those you only got killed if you were face to face with the enemy. But in this war, they fire shells and use machine guns and drop bombs from the air, and it's all just awful.The word "shell" didn't sound to dreadful to me at first, so i looked it up, and it turns out to be a metal container with explosives inside.I suppose that when itlands , it explodes.Horrible. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of men have been killed in the last two years of war, Papa told us in his last letter. Horses,too, which i cannot bear to think about.

But let us hope that our new Prime MInister, Mr David Lloyd George, can do what Mr Asquith couldn't: bring us safely through this war, to victory.

I'll pray especially hard for Papa tonight. Aunt Leonora says there are terrific nurses out there in FRance and Belgium. I hope they look after him.

I'm letting my darling dog,Billie, sleep on my bed tonight. He's such a comfort when I'm anxious, and I'm sad he's growing old. I don't know why everyone dosen't have an Airedale. He's the nicest, most polite dog,and so handsome.