Letter written during WW1.

My dearest Robyn,
                             Oh, how I miss you! How I long to see your lovely    face again and feel your smooth thick hair. Darling, I write this as I wait  for the fighting to begin again, bringing with it, the pain and the bloodshed of another day.  So love, how’ve  you been  spending  your days at home? Poetry, knitting or cooking? I wish for these moments of bliss. Now this dreadful war has  come  and  separated me  from you.
                    The  only thing I can do to console my aching heart  is to  read your letters  and write  back. We have been  ordered  to clean our rifles and other guns every day!  Perhaps only just to keep us occupied! Sometimes if  the generals aren't patrolling our areas, we can have a bit of a chat with the other soldiers in our trench.  It's the only way we can reminisce the good old days of our towns.

  I made a new friend here, his name is Tommy
Williams. I quite enjoyed talking to him as our interest are similar. Football, writing and Saully's Rum After the battle we'd sit amongst the frogs, rats and mud. This was the only time when we spoke to each other. He had lost his legs in a surprise grenade attack and lived with us until he had the chance to go back home again. They couldn't even give him a wheelchair! That's what the standards here have fallen to. It brings me great shame. That line, what was it again? The one that drew me in to the war at first? Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori, wasn't it? Well, it's all a great big lie! There is nothing great about dying for your country if they don't even honour your sacrifice!

Tommy had showed me some photos of his girl, Jenny. Quite a looker you know? But not nearly as beautiful as you my sweet. When Tommy got home in Earlesville, he sent me a letter telling me about his homecoming. He found it hard to cope, as everyone stared and pointed at his stump of a leg. Even his Jenny refused him. I'm sure nothing can come between us, eh sugar? 

The living conditions here are worse than any imagination of hell! I cannot even begin to describe them to you! There has been another wave of Trench Fever and Trench foot. Hordes of men have plagued up the Paramedic tent which is now overflowing with the dead and dying. The latrines here smell worse than old Bob's backyard! Every morning we march, drunk with fatigue, securing our failing borders, keeping them from unravelling. After that we have an unofficial breakfast truce. Then, the horrors are unleashed. The rapid exchange of gunfire, the mustard gas bombs and the noise. Oh how I wish I could block out the noise! Men screaming in anguish, raining bombs and total chaos. The perfect background movie playing in the painting of a mad artist's canvas. What you see here is no better than what you hear. You can see the No Man's Land turn lethal. No one in the trenches is allowed to take the merest peek for the fear of becoming easy pickings for a stray bullet. It's a darn tough life here, Robyn. While I walk through the bodies of my dead comrades, I think of us and imagine our reunion to keep me from gagging. I think of what I would say, then edit it, over and over again. I visualise us drunk in the longest embrace. The fighting has started again, I'm afraid. I shall have to stop now as I have to go. Wish me luck. Sleep well Robyn and stay safe, for me.                                                       

As always, yours faithfully,                                                     Richard