Letter from a soldier in France, dated Aug. 8th, 1917:
[Second half of letter. See previous post for first half.]

Your last letter was written from Eastbourne. Are you still down there? It must be lovely down there now. That is providing you are not having the same wretched weather that we have had lately over here. It was all right for a few days ~ some weeks ago ~ but lately it has been raining almost every day ~ and it surely can rain here when it so desires! Lord ~ I have never seen anything like the torrent that came down two or three days ago. We were all drenched to the skin and I had a hot bath in my tent out of the water that I collected in my boots (very nearly anyway!)

It makes me frightfully homesick to think of you in bathing down there ~ A good swim would be such a treat. By the way, if I am still above ground at the end of another month, why I may get leave. It will come about then I think but one cannot count on [underlined] anything over here ~ it will probably all be stopped just before I am to leave. But things seem to be improving and I am hoping to be across about then.

By the way, you haven't told me what you are doing? Are you still down at Eastbourne or are you in any of the shows? Please let me know ~ And I say, Lily dear, let me know where you expect to be from now on, won't you? You see if I happened to get leave suddenly I should want to know where you were. (Please don't go to Ireland or the north of Scotland or any other ungetatable [sic] (How's that?) place!

I have lost track of the shows that are on now ~ it is such ages since I was across last. Is there anything good going? Won't you please write me a nice long letter and tell me all the news? By the way how's that nephew of yours getting along? I expect he's growing into a bonnie laddie by now.
Is May still with you? You were in the same show before. I hope so. It is so much nicer for you to be together isn't it? Give her my best regards and tell her I hope to see her some day soon. And I hope your Mother and sister are well too ~ Remember me to them all ~ Guess they have forgotten me by now.
Well Lily dear, won't you please be very, very nice to me and write soon? We are out at billets just now but expect to be "off to the war" again soon. There are quite big doings over here these days ~ Old Fritzie is getting part of that which is due to him ~ and he's going to get plenty more.

It's high time that I was turning in. It's raining again now ~ but this morning was fine and I managed to get off for a top-hole ride! Wish you could have come along. It's lovely to get away from camp now and then and go off across the country. Well, I must close this up. Night night dear old Lily. Take good care of yourself and don't forget all about this chap over here.
With ever so much love,
Bassell
Actual letter saved between the pages of one of Lydia (Mrs. Drew) Thompson's books.

France, Aug. 8th, 1917
Dear Old Lily,

I'm afraid I have only myself to blame for the fact that I haven't had a letter from you for ages and ages ~ perhaps you have even forgotten me ~ have you? You won't be cruel enough to say so even if you had ~ I know.
But we have been pretty much on the go over here lately and somehow it seems much harder to write these days. Mother is always "strafing" me because I don't write home often enough.

We are in a much more unsettled sort of state than we were last year. Then we were in one part of the line and had regular towns in and out. Now we are on the move nearly all the time. By the way ~ perhaps you didn't know it but there really is [underlined] a war on over here!

But I say, Lily dear ~ I think that you might have been kind enough to write to me again. You know that I do love to get your letters ~ and your time isn't wasted that you spend on them ~ Besides, you know ~ if you help to keep the "troops" cheerful, you are helping to win the "wa-ar." But I shouldn't strafe you, should I? You have always been so good to me and I'll be lucky if you haven't quite forgotten me! Is it too much to hope that you are keeping a wee corner of your heart[illegible] for me? It would be something very precious and I should indeed be luckly....With ever so much love, Bassell.

Actual letter saved between the pages in one of Lydia (Mrs. Drew) Thompson's books.