COU-25

British Expeditionary Force
France
29^th October 1915

Dear Goldsbrough,

If I have not written you before please don't think it was for want of the inclination, but rather to the innumerable calls on my time. I am resting a few days before going back into the trenches again. Although I am in my old Battalion at present I have been lent to a Battalion of Royal Scots, & so I wander between the two in the trenches with one & in billets with another. You understand the difficulty of writing about the actual fighting but I may tell you a little about it. The principal thing is that one hasn't the remotest idea what it is like until one has been in the [censored] maze of trenches which runs from the North Sea to Switzerland. When I first went up I walked for nearly two miles up a communication trench with absolutely no idea of which direction I was going in & unable to see more than about ten yards ahead. For two days things were very quiet only an occasional handful of grenades or a villainous oil can came whizzing into our locality & of course the snipers were unceasing. Oil cans are too awful for words. They are simply a very large can filled with a high explosive, no bullets. Fortunately one can hear it coming, but when it explodes there is a hell of a row. It kills by concussion & I have seen two men torn to pieces by it one. One of the men simply disappeared leaving no traces behind, not even a belt buckle. Shrapnel too is pretty awful & I had one hair raising experience with it. I was visiting a large town which you will know quite well from its photographs of desolation. Its name is the same as Donegall Rd. Moore's first name⁹¹ . While looking round the damage I heard a shell humming toward me. The two of us who were together jumped as one man behind a heap of rubbish. It was a high explosive shell & it blew the rubbish all over the pair of us as we gathered ourselves together shrapnel began to burst overhead & we had to run for it. The damage to this place is simply appalling. A square (about twice the size of Donegall Square) with a beautiful cathedral in its midst is almost levelled to the ground. The cathedral itself is a sight to move anyone to furious indignation. The town is a large one but I am certain that there is not a whole pane of glass in it & a million pounds won't even repair the damage to buildings. I had to ride into this place occasionally & used to go into a café there for a meal & in it one found no one but British officers attended by a very beautiful girl who has never left the town. She is a heroine of the first order & her experiences are marvellous. I think I was shelled every time I went into that town. My horse knows quite well when to gallop when the shells get too close. I don't so much mind being shelled in the open but I hate being either shelled or bombed in the trenches. One day a colonel of the Liverpool Irish two majors from the Royal Lancs & myself were having a game of Bridge in the formers dug out, 15ft below the ground when to our horror, after a yell of warning from above, a rifle grenade commenced to roll slowly down the steps into the dug out. Its progress was painfully slow & as it bumped from step to step we all gasped. Finally it rolled into the middle of the place. It settled under the table without exploding. On leaving the trenches we had a very bad stroke of luck. It is customary at night to turn machine guns onto certain known targets & belt away. Of course one has to take pot luck but it is this random shooting both by day & night which does so much execution in the trenches just now. Well just as we emerged from the
long communication trench into the roadway a machine gun opened on the trench head. I lost fifteen men & some fellows coming up the road got it fairly in the neck.
Now I am snug in an old deserted house for a few days rest. I sleep on the first spring mattress ever made & its devilish uncomfortable but better than the hard floor. The weather is [foggy] here & awfully cold...

By the way is Hubert⁹² here with the Young Cits? I haven't seen them for a long time. Please remember me to all at home & down at the Library. I hope they are all well including your most worthy self. My address is the same if you feel inclined to write.

Best of good luck wishes

Sincerely yours,

T Coulson