There is oceans of work to do. I am enjoying myself tremendously & keeping very fit. Allen has gone to Bgde. H.Q. with my old job & I am now Adjutant. The C.O. came back from leave two days ago & is just the same as ever, if anything rather more so. Most unfortunately he has had to go to a Commissioning Officers Conference, & will be away about a week. Old James Griffiths is commanding again in his absence, & we shall get along all right, but it is not the same thing as having the C.O. here.
Work has been the chief order of the day lately – the office has needed a good deal of reorganizing, & I have had a bit of a job collecting some of the papers & things which seem to have been scattered broadcast all over the Mess & kitchens & everywhere else.
Just at present we are up in trenches again & consequently there is considerably less paper showered upon us form brigade etc. – & one gets time to stroll round the lines & see what is going on. There is a most appalling amount of work always to be done in trenches & there never seems to be half the necessary number of men to do it. Fortunately while the Brigadier is away we do not get “strafed” for not having achieved the impossible. We had a very nice little dinner a night or two ago given by A Coy. – it was quite cheering to get back again amongst the old original people. We are very short handed for officers – a lot away on courses & odd jobs – but what we have got are jolly good. There is no sign of Wollaston yet though we have heard more than once that he is on the way out. Rumour has it that there are a lot of all sorts & kinds of Subalterns coming – there will doubtless be plenty of work for me on the choicest specimens of them. We have a most excellent H.Q. here with a really first class armchair. Where on earth it came from no one knows, because no one has ever seen such an armchair in France. Out here they do not know what comfort is in the chair line. No time for more.
Captain JD Hills 