Cecil Mills Collection - Wallet 3 - Part 1 of 17

France
3rd May 1916 

Dear old Darling
Don't care a Damn 
what happens, but I'm going to write you
a new letter tonight.  I just got word this
afternoon that a mail closes tomorrow & there
is no other for 2 weeks. We are getting very
little time to ourselves. The bally censoring
is taking up all our spare time. I brought
along a blooming sand bag more than ½ full
tonight & we want to get them all through if
possible, as the men that write them all have
wives, mothers & sisters & that want to hear
from them & I can imagine how disappointed
you would be if there was no letter from me.
Nothing very exciting happened since we came
out; a few long range shells lob round now
& again in the paddocks, & make big holes
in the cultivation. They never seem to hurt
anyone, or very rarely. They kill a few poor
women & children now & again when they
shell the villages. Got another Bully from
you today dated 9th March, thats 3 in
succession, so the scheme of tearing off the
red cover is working splendidly. Lovely weather
still continuing & the trees are getting greener
& more beautiful every day

2/ 
Great Biggs the good news for tomorrow.
Our Co goes to the baths for our clean up.
It is a lovely idea. Hot water up to the men's
necks, change of clean underclothes, swap
clean socks for dirty ones, towels also.
It will be just 2 weeks since I had my
last bath, not counting the dip I had in
the creek in the Trenches. The bally old
Huns are sending some big stuff over in
the direction of the baths tonight. It would
be rotten if they got them. The burst of the
shells is shaking our old billet here & it
must be quite 3 miles away. Would like to
hear our big guns open up and strafe them a
treat. Forgot to mention in my last that I'm
awfully well. We are getting lovely tucker. The
old girl who lives in our Billet is cooking
for us. Plenty eggs, milk, vegetables & We had
Hot Roast Beef & 'Salad' tonight. Think I
must have eaten quite 1lb of meat. This is a
rotten old rushed letter Pettie, but I must
really go & tear into the mens letters. Will
send you a cable as soon as I can, as I
suppose you have seen some 23 "B" casualties
in the papers by this time & know we have been
in action & you are probably worrying about
your old man, while he is as fit as a fiddle
 

3/ 
you would not worry over him for
a minute if you could only see him
for a second. No more now Pettie
Girl, will have more time to myself
after tonight, as we wont have to
rush the censoring so quickly.
With heaps of love to my two own
Bestests
Your own old man
Cecil
PS. Hope to answer your dear
old letters next time
Cecil

3-5-16 
Mrs. CB. Mills 
c/- Dr A Burne 
"Kinellan"
 Dalley St. 
Waverley  
New South Wales 
Australia

France
Sunday 7th May 1916 

Dear Old Girl
Here we are again, got a while
to myself today that I don't require for sleep Have
had pretty rocky time the last few days. My platoon
has been on a big trench digging job. It meant 
getting up at 2/30 am, marching 5½ miles, working  
6 hours, then marching home again. We all got
pretty fed up of it, 4 days in succession, so we got 
permission to camp down here near the job so now we 
will only have about 400 yards to walk to our job. I 
think  we will have about 5 more days of it. Had a 
pretty comfortable billet where we were. The Batmen 
used to buy extras in the way of eggs & the old lady 
with whom we are billeted does the cooking for us. 
We had a hot joint about twice every 3 days & soup 
once a day, so we were living well. It will be pretty  
tough here just rations. Stew about every second  
day Bully "beef" & maconochie rations the other day 
but as you know I can eat anything & thrive on it. 
We are right up close to the firing line now, so it is 
not much of a spell from the trenches as we can be 
strafed anytime the Bosch catch sight of us working. 
This can tear shrapnel into us, but if they don't get us with 
the first shell we are well & truly in the trench we are  
digging before the next one comes. High explosives are 
not much use against the trenches we are making 
only hope they don't drop onto this Billet else they will

2/
have us scuttling inside one & a half minutes - 
Where we are now must have been a delightful old 
place before the Curse started. Beautiful old house with  
a moat right round it, water in the moat at that 
with a couple of bridges over it. Not draw bridges tho. 
The outbuildings are in a huge quadrangle & [[?]] it is 
in these buildings that we are living for the time being. 
Plenty of clean straw so the men are very comfortable. 
I sent a stretcher along on the transport also the good 
old sewn up blankets so I'm alright - The weather has 
been keeping us nice & warm now so I'm now wearing  
the good old silk shirts you sent me, & they are so 
nice to wear [[& the?]] cheese cloth shirt is very comfy next  
to the skin. Now for your dear old letters will read 
them all through again. There will be another mail distributed 
in a day or so, 19th March from Sydney. I saw a letter 
yesterday, so our Brigade will get theirs soon. 
I think I told you in a previous letter that I got the 
parcel with the socks & belt, but the one with [[Hams?]] - 
Tobacco has not turned up yet, That would be No 2, it 
may come any day now. Hope you are having a 
good time at Kempsey old Pettie & that you & the [[Bohsn?]] 
are quite happy there. It should be very nice up there 
now, getting fairly cool beginning of May. Evidently 
the returning of [[Mithir's?]] letter was just a mistake. 
I hope so any how. Johnnie must be a character with his 

3/ 
Chair & grunting, he must be a bit of a mimic or praps 
he considers it the right thing to do at a time like that.  
By the way, last Friday returning from the Trench digging 
I saw a huge Officer coming along the road towards me 
wearing a huge grin. Hanged if it was not Docker 
He is an awful size, but looked very well He had had 
some wonderful hairbreadth escapes in the trenches, but 
of course we can all have those If a shell had only 
gone somewhere else it would have hit someone 
I got a scare last Tuesday, was going round our [[mens?]] 
huts back at the Billets with the Doctor and we stopped to 
examine the incinerator when suddenly a cartridge 
went off with a [[frightful wallop?]] and just [[in front of me?]], made 
one ear sing for a minute. Fancy getting wounded at the 
Incinerator Not very romantic [[Like to?]] to get hold of the 
silly arse who let his ammunition lie about to get mixed  
up with the rubbish.  Next Day Monday. 
Suddenly got sleepy yesterday afternoon, so I 
knocked off and had a sleep. Am back at my old 
Billet today. The Artillery objected to us being where 
we were camped as it was too close to one of their 
Batteries, so we had to clear & we take up the 
old 5 1/2 mile walk again each way to work. 
Am just as glad, as it was a regular death  
trap if the German Artillery had dropped onto 
us.  We finished the work this morning that

4/
had been set out for us so tomorrow I expect to 
take a new lot of men, and my own chaps will 
go for their bath. Wish I could go for mine as 
it is now nearly 3 weeks since I've had a really 
good bath.  Really cold spell along today, it came 
along pretty suddenly, now to get back to your  
letters.  I suppose by now old Johnnie boy is talking 
away all day long.  Hope it will not be long before 
I can hear the dear kid at it.  Fancy him eating 
porridge just like an ordinary member of the family. 
You have not mentioned your father much in your  
letters, so it came as rather a shock that he is 
under new treatment. If he has one meal every 2nd 
day I don't wonder that he is irritable at times. 
What do you think I would be like, if I had one 
feed every two days.  My menu for today, Bacon 
Bread & Butter & Tea @ 4 am. Bacon & Eggs 
Bread & Butter & Tea @ 8/45 am (I found some 
chaps I knew down close to where I was working 
& invited myself to Breakfast ) Grilled steak and 
chipped potato  Bread Butter & Tea for lunch at 
12 o'clock & tonight for dinner we had a special 
treat in the shape of an old roast hen the old 
lady would not roast potatoes with it, but 
insisted upon us having rice (the way we would 
have bread sauce) & lettuce salad. It was nice 

5/
for a change.  Hard luck for Foley that he 
made an arse of himself and had to resign, but I'll 
give him a pair of sox when some more come. 
Have been able to give the Bosun the 2nd in Command 
& another subaltern a pair, they were all on the 
rocks.  Have still got the blue pair Mrs Dickinson 
made me also the balaclava.   The blue sox are very 
fine & still as good as possible.  Have always put  
them in my pack when I've moved.  My new Batman 
is a real Batman.  He is elderly, a Barber, looks 
after my togs, onto my hair &c & generally  looks 
after me.   Can wake up at any time he wants 
to.  Has wakened me each morning at 2/30 
to the minute.  He is quite wonderful at it. 
When I started writing this afternoon (did start  
this afternoon but was interrupted) the ladies  
said Oh Correspondence when I bring [[it?]] out  
your letters - Madam ? I produced your 
photos & the excitement was intense. Garcon 
also took their fancy. Tres Bonne Beaucoup 
was the universal verdict.  I get keener & 
keener on those post cards every time I look at 
them & I'm dying for the parcel to come to see the  
other one. Lots of people remembered John's 
Birthday. He had a most successful 1st Anniversary 
You know by now where I was on his Birthday -