Letter from William Ernest Marshall
Appeared in the Bede Magazine in 1917
“Somewhere in France”,
Monday, April 2nd
You will be wondering, I have no doubt, when I am going to write, and I must ask your pardon for so long neglecting to do so. You would hear from Rotherham all about my sudden return to France. It was rather bad luck, but I have quite settled down again now, and am thankful that I was fortunate enough to get back to my own battalion. Since I returned to them we have had a fairly decent time. To begin with, I returned just in time for a six weeks’ divisional rest, during which we rubbed up our training in all branches in the art of fighting, and had brigade and divisional sports. Our return to the line synchronised with the beginning of the German evacuation, and as you will have read in the “County Advertiser”, we had the satisfaction of taking and holding five lines of trenches almost on the same front as that which proved so deadly to us last July. Since then we have moved again, and are at present billeted in a town, after a trek which occupied eight days. It is the first time we have lived in a town more than a day since coming to France, and it is a delightful change after those dirty little Somme villages. The other day we had a Bede visitor, in the person of Harold Murray (1911-’13), who is in the R. F. A. and on army corps headquarters. He looks very fit and happy.
Date: 2-Apr-1917
Author: William Ernest Marshall
Reference: https://www.dur.ac.uk/library/asc/roll/publications/
Where to find this: The Bede Magazine August 1917 edition
Contributed by Fiona Johnson - Durham
