Letter from the Trenches

To My De atomic number 18st Elsie, I know this is my fifth letter in 3 days but I need to break up the truth. I join the army for adventure and the chance to see new places but instead I am nutriment in a mud hole, freezing under constant fear of death. You may laugh and regulate that I am but whingeing and that I am probably the only scared man hither but its not true. All 5,000 of us are terrified of what may come if we so often as lift our heads into the view of the enemy. any day I consecrate spent in this infringe, we have had shells fired at us.The noise is horrific and the despair in the eyes of many a s agedier is evident as another comes over. If and when the shelling stops, many drink or smoke to try disentangle but you can tell that a few are on the brink of breaking down. both(prenominal) men have shot themselves in the arm or leg just to have an disgrace serious enough to get them out of the trenches but not bad enough to kill them. away from the threat of h aving your head blown move out, the Germans are now trying to brag us to death. These gas attacks are few and far between but when one is launched the new recruits drop like flies principally because they do not know anything.One called Jenkins lost his gas mask and when the Germans launched a chlorine gas shell, well, that was it for him really. The vile stuff enkindles your lungs out. The newbies can do nothing but choke up their fire out lungs. The other gas they use is mustard gas which is truly evil. It blisters the skin, blinding men who consequently roll virtually in agony, clutching their red raw flesh. Forgive me if I am scaring you but I need to talk about this. Our daily food is bully beef. When you first start the army and you are eating this you think its bland but edible.After 3 months of bully beef and little else, you oppugn whether you would actually feel better hungry or with a tin of bully beef inner(a) you. Everyone is given some rum to start the day off which is rather uplifting for most of us. take in is allowed in the daytime which takes away the taste of bully beef but at night we arent allowed as the cigarette light makes us an easy target for a German spy. Tea is freely ready(prenominal) but the trouble is that it often freezes in your cup as it is so cold. We arent allowed coats as our superiors say that we wont be able to walk properly in them so frostbite is uncouth.We wear as many layers of wearable as possible which means that our clothes are dirty and sweaty. workforce in the front office cant wash until we are sent back to support or reserve. Its made doubly worse by the mud. The mud is probably the worst aspect or rather what comes with it. The mud is oten knee deep. We have to eat, quietude and fight in piles of the stuff. Putees are no use (thats slang for material wrapped more or less your shins). Do you remember little Billy Rawlson? He drowned in the mud. He was sleeping and his head went under.By the tim e we noticed he wasnt perched up where he normally was, he was dead(p). Send Betty my commiserations and apologies. The mud brings trench invertebrate bum with it. Trench foot is where your feet swell up to sometimes double their original size. To start off with, you lose all feeling in your feet. Someone who had trench foot stuck his bayonet into the afflicted foot and didnt even flinch After a few days of having numb feet, the sensitivity comes back with avengeance. Men will often have the foot amputated rather than endure the terrific pain that ensues.Trench foot isnt the only illness that is rife amongst soldiers but Dysentery (stomach pains and diarrhoea), Nephritis (kidney inflammation) and VD are very common and, due to the nature of the illness, it makes life here even more difficult even if you yourself dont suffer from the illness. Every single man in this trench has lice of some variety. This may sound disgusting but hunt club out lice becomes almost a social pastime . We search for each others lice and crush them between our fingernails or burn them with our candles but somehow I doubt chatting will catch on back home.Tabby would be happy here. Since there are no cats here, rats run rife. We call them corpse rats because these rats will eat the bodies of the dead on the battlefield. Even injured soldiers have found these infernal creatures nibbling his wounds. There have been reports of rats as enceinte as cats about 3 miles up the trench. That would be a great trophy for the soldier that killed it. percentage of what annoys me about the army is how men lose their minds to the generals after a few weeks of training but whence how they almost reawake once theyre in the thick of it all. To be quite frank, it all disgusts me.The battlefield is nearly as muddy as the trenches but with double the horrors. Masses of bodies are piled up out of the way whilst the rats fly the coop upon the corpses. To step onto that field is death and every night t his week that is what we have been sentenced to. The commander sounds his whistle, always at night, and we climb over. We run over the field and then you notice your mates falling to the ground around you. The first time it happened, I thought that the commander had shouted an order and Id missed it so I lay down too but then I realised that their eyes were shut and they werent ventilating system anymore.I havent been shot yet but surely itll happen to me and then who knows if Ill be alive to tell the tale. After we attack, the Germans will attack us, with their bayonets attached to their guns just as ours had been and like us they will fall. Everyone hates that old butcher Haig. I tell you Elsie, Id like to see his face if he saw what hell he puts innocent men through. Please, show this letter to everyone you know who is considering joining the army. Let them know what its really like. Love, as always Jim