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Letter from Edward Packe to James Packe (his brother)

Diary entry

25.XI.14 Friday (25th November 1914)

My dear James

Thanks to both you & Ruth so very much for the fags and matches. The 'Lapsikas' are very much appreciated by myself, but I'm glad to say my pals don't very much care for Turkish fags.

Please thank Ruth ever so much for her letter & parcel of mitts: which was very much appreciated & tell her that we would much rather have cold weather than wet especially when you people turn up such trumps in the way of sending out what the papers call "Warm comforts for our Tommies"!! As long as it freezes it's all right because you can always get warm, but when it rains everything gets so beastly muddy and filthy and, as Macbeth tritely remarks in Shakespeare's wholly incomprehensible and never to be forgotten classic, 'This is bloody business'.

We have had two lots of snow and the water in our water-bottles has been solid ice and several people have had to go sick with frostbite, but it has now thawed again and the trenches are filthy muddy again. We are entrenched just inside a wood in the outskirts of a village and so far we have had no lyddite shells for which we are more than thankful. I share a 'house' with another chap which we built between us. It's about 8 ft long and 3ft deep roofed over with boughs, then straw and then earth and will keep out shrapnel bullets, but as a friend of mine remarked the other day "Old Jack ain't particular of where he comes in".

Yesterday I went out with chaps to put up barbed wire on a flank in the wood, in case they try to attack us that way and by Jove, when we'd finished (I was doing the outside lot, there are 3 of them) I had a job to find my way in and it was broad daylight, so if they try and rush us by night, Heaven help them.

Please excuse bad writing. Our artillery is shelling one or two houses close to this wood in which the Germans have had a maxim and have worried us a bit with sniping and although the shells are bursting about 150 yds away, they literally shake the ground (here's another —xxxxx) the devil was short and none too far from this trench, please note the tail of the "O" in "another" as written above and witness if I lie when I say they shake.

I am very glad your motor is going strong. I expect you have got into its "knacks" now & it has get into yours. Yes! we are sick of war news now, & it's nearly all lies & rumours.

Kaiser Bill's message was very short & terse, & took the form of a bullet which "zipped" between me & another chap the other night when we were doing sentry. The snipers afore mentioned are never quiet at night & day for a minute at a time, anytime they snipe continually & must waste an awful lot of ammunition. Their total bag is 3, all of which were shot yesterday, two Sergeants and a Private; I'm afraid one of the Sergeants won't live but the other two ought to be all right.

The Artillery are putting their 6" over us very nicely now and I should think are finding their target as a lump of brick the size of a plumb has just dropped outside our trench. You can only just hear the gun fire, & then you hear a noise starting very faint, like the wind in the trees, but increasing in volume gradually going up the scale till it sounds like an express train going through a station, then a dull bump, & then a hell of a row & pieces of brick & shell start dropping all round, so you have to keep pretty well under cover. If you stand up you can see the earth & bricks blown up & you have just time to duck in & under before the pieces begin to drop. I can't actually see the houses because of the trees, but by the sound of falling bricks I should say that something is happening.

I should love a port pie, the very thought "raises tumults in my breast" as the hymn has it! I had a jolly good Plum P. from Aunt Emma which I wrote and thanked for, also a very pathetic parcel of cigarettes and matches from the Wisemans which I have also thanked for. I should a pork pie or a cake, either of these would be absolute bliss.

I'm very glad that Freddy didn't have any suffering, but I am more sorry about it than I can say. If only you had yourself to look after it wouldn't be so bad, but it's hearing & seeing your friends & relations bowled over that makes this business so rotten. And another thing, I know that you are all bound to be a bit uneasy about me, & that makes me worry because you are worrying, but I look at it like this. If it is ordained that I am to be bowled nothing on earth can prevent it, but if on the other hand it is ordained that I can come through this safe, then I shall come through this safe. But for all that I don't believe in putting it too much to the test; such as standing up in full view of snipers for half an hour at a time, so much for my philosophy.

Please tell Elizabeth that my pay is accumulating somewhere & now I am Lce. Corps. I get an extra 3d a day. By the way I like to be addresses as Lnce.Corp. now & not Pte. as one or two people have done. Please also tell Elizabeth that it is too late I'm afraid to make her an allowance.

I wonder they didn't keep Elizabeth at the Idiot meeting when they found that she had biked all the way. What tremendous energy.

Please thank Pen very much for her letter of the 8th & tell her that Mrs B. is sending me her new book.

Please thank Beats very much for her letter of the 10th & tell her that I was very much touched by Elsie's solicitude for my welfare. I can well imagine Brian making anybody puff. I have written to Christopher once, because I don't know his address & whether he's in England. I wonder if it is him who send me tins of 25 A & N cigarettes to me, I expect so as they are the same as he smokes.

I kept this letter back the other day to wait for the mail & somehow I haven't had a chance to finish it since. Since then (about 3 days) I wasn't able to thank the following people very much indeed. Yourself & Ruth for the usuals & some soap. Eliz. for two letters & a bundle of mitts & bullseyes & a handkerchief, Be. for some cigarettes & Pen for letters & handerchiefs. Eveline Lawson very kindly sent me some chocolate & somebody sent me a box of 100 gold tipped cigarettes very fat & very good, but without a word as to who they came from. Anyhow I swanked round with them no end leaving the gold tips in prominent positions about the trench.

This morning I had a letter from Mr Salter & one from Eddie Fox saying that he is sending me 500 cigarettes which absolutely appals, staggers & confounds me, as I can never carry them about & they are sure to get wet this weather unless they are in tins but all the same it is most awfully kind of him & I shall be able to distribute a few hundred of them.

Today is the 30th & the weather is -----!! I wish it would freeze hard till the war is over. We don't mind the cold as long as it's dry, but the wet is ---------!!!!!

Best love to all & very many thanks distributed in Army Corps to you all,

Edward A Packe

P.S. I was glad to hear the souvenirs arrived safe.


Passed by Censor No.105
Signed G.A.Pateman (?)

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