Letter from the Trenches
My dear Lucy,
I know that I am not supposed to be writing to you right now but I just couldn’t help it; I need to express myself to you on everything that has been going on here in the trenches. The trenches are so cold at the moment; I wish it would stay this way though. It’s perfect right now, beautiful snowfall and this I am happy for, brings us back the old memories of me and you. Unfortunately it will not be like this forever, it will be summer in a while and that is going to be bad. I remember last year’s heat wave. The rotten smell of those innocent bodies, just dreadful and those pesky rats will be coming out too, eating every bit of the remaining corpse, but thankfully, I am in the dig out of the trench to get away from the freezing, but memorable weather. It may not be a five star hotel, but god thank that I am still alive. I miss you all. I miss mom’s home cooking. I miss getting yelled at for not doing my job around the house. I would trade anything to get out of this trench. My feet are freezing and I have been sick for over a week. I never want to hear the words “over the top” again. I’ve seen more any 17 year old should. I just want to come home. The food that we get here is horrid, but it’s always better to eat that than starve. The food here consists of stale bread, dry biscuits, unclean water and some beef but that is all we get, on top of that we have to also cook it ourselves, which is a total waste as we barely eat anything.
I just finished digging out the trench and adding on the duckboards for preparation for tomorrow’s warfare. Digging the trenches is hard job! It is the custom here for troops to take turn about in the front lines of trenches, one division taking a number of sections of the front trench for three days then moving back to the second line for another three days and then back to the third line, then back again to the front line. About once in six weeks they come back to the reserve lines for a rest. I have been up into
I know that I am not supposed to be writing to you right now but I just couldn’t help it; I need to express myself to you on everything that has been going on here in the trenches. The trenches are so cold at the moment; I wish it would stay this way though. It’s perfect right now, beautiful snowfall and this I am happy for, brings us back the old memories of me and you. Unfortunately it will not be like this forever, it will be summer in a while and that is going to be bad. I remember last year’s heat wave. The rotten smell of those innocent bodies, just dreadful and those pesky rats will be coming out too, eating every bit of the remaining corpse, but thankfully, I am in the dig out of the trench to get away from the freezing, but memorable weather. It may not be a five star hotel, but god thank that I am still alive. I miss you all. I miss mom’s home cooking. I miss getting yelled at for not doing my job around the house. I would trade anything to get out of this trench. My feet are freezing and I have been sick for over a week. I never want to hear the words “over the top” again. I’ve seen more any 17 year old should. I just want to come home. The food that we get here is horrid, but it’s always better to eat that than starve. The food here consists of stale bread, dry biscuits, unclean water and some beef but that is all we get, on top of that we have to also cook it ourselves, which is a total waste as we barely eat anything.
I just finished digging out the trench and adding on the duckboards for preparation for tomorrow’s warfare. Digging the trenches is hard job! It is the custom here for troops to take turn about in the front lines of trenches, one division taking a number of sections of the front trench for three days then moving back to the second line for another three days and then back to the third line, then back again to the front line. About once in six weeks they come back to the reserve lines for a rest. I have been up into