‘Here I am in the line again, and I hope if all goes well that we will soon go out for a few weeks – yes, as you say, well over 100 days I have spent out here and I hope over half the time before my leave comes…’

The remainder of Sherriff’s letter to Pips was brief. He told him that the weather had remained hard and frosty – a ‘very healthy sort of weather’ which at least kept the mud away. And he promised a series of longer letters in the future, lamenting the fact that there was so little to write about: ‘You know we are strictly forbidden to deal with military matters in any way, and the only subjects left are those about the French people and country, and when we get out I will try and give you sketches of this. In the meantime’, he wrote, ‘you will be content, I know, with short letters like this.’

[Next letters: 25 January]