On the move, Sherriff wrote briefly to tell his mother that his fortnight’s rest was up, and that he  had spent most off the previous day travelling back to his Regiment – but since they, in turn, had gone back to rest, ‘we are having a job to find them’.

‘The rest has certainly done me good in some ways,’ he wrote, ‘but I still feel very nervy sometimes…I had a very good time during my last fortnight as it was an ideal place to rest – it is funny that several men got tired of the inactivity and asked to go back – I should not have minded several more weeks of it.’

Having now been out in France for five months (‘it seems ages, doesn’t it’), he felt that it would now not be much longer before he was given leave – perhaps another couple of months or so. And if the battalion were to go out to rest for a month the time would pass all the quicker (‘I am hoping there will be some cross-country running etc’.

[The battalion’s stay in rest would last only for a little under three weeks, but at least cross-country running would be on the menu of activities.]

[Next letter: 15 February]