Cecil Mills Collection - Wallet 3 - Part 8 of 17

No 41
France
2.6.16 

Dear Old Woman.
My O.C. is going to England
tonight on 8 days leave, so he has promised to
take a letter for me & post it there. It may catch
a mail sooner, anyhow it will be a change of
route. Nothing startling has happened since last
I wrote. We are still out of the trenches doing
fatigue work principally. The job I am on is
Cable laying along a road at the back of our
trenches. We get enough shells & bullets to make
it lively. The Rifle bullets are nearly all spent ones.
at least the ginger is out of most of them. The work
is all done at night time, so it is only luck if
they come anywhere near us. The Artillery fire
at nights is nearly always directed at our Batterys.
They get some hurry up now & again, but all they
do when the Huns get fairly close is to "Imshy"
into their cover trenches & wait until it is all 
over then come out again & have a fly themselves
Yesterday Hughes & Fisher came along & about
1/2 our Battn & a crowd of other troops, had to
assemble so we could be speeched to. Could not hear
what Hughes had to say from where I was too well
but we gathered that we were all bally heroes & the
people of Australia were proud of us &c. & all that
sort of rot. Poor little man he looked very ill & we
all felt very sorry for him. I was glad no shells
came round whilst he was there. He just looks a
bundle of nerves. Don't think his visit to the
nearly Front would do him any good, as guns are

48/ 
France 2.6.16
My O. C goes to England tonight, on 8 days 
leave - will post this for me there.  May catch an 
earlier mail. Nothing startling since last I wrote. 
We are still out of the trenches doing fatigue work  
principally. The job I am on is cable laying along a
road at the back of our trenches. We get enough
shells & bullet to make it lively. The rifle bullets
are nearly all spent ones - at least the ginger is out 
of most of them. The work is all done at night time so it  
is only luck if they come anywhere near us. The 
Artillery fire at night is nearly always directed at  
our batteries - they get some hurry up now & again 
but all they do when the Huns get fairly close
is to "Imshy" into their cover trenches & wait till it
is all over, then come out again & have a fly themselves.  
Yesterday Hughes & Fisher came along &
about 1/2 our Battn & a crowd of other troops had to 
assemble so we could be speeched to. Could not hear 
what Hughes had to say from where I was too well, 
but we gathered we were all bally heroes & the people of
Australia were proud of us etc. & all that sort of rot. Poor  
little man, he looked very ill & we all felt very sorry for  
him. I was glad no shells came round whilst
he was there. He just looks a bundle of nerves.
Don't think his visit to the nearly Front, would do
him any good, as guns are

2/ 
going off all the time & the aircraft were
particularly busy yesterday & getting shelled a
treat. I was scared we would be spotted. If we'd
been shelled it would have been awful murder, all
cooped up together the way we were. Was jolly
glad when it was all over. It did no good & the
risk was too great, as we could have been
spotted quite easily by the German Planes. Just
fancy my OC going to England tonight, tomorrow
he will meet his wife there, tomorrow our
Anniversary. Only wish I was going in his
place to meet you there, & that the bally old war
was all over. I'll envy him for 8 days & then feel
very sorry for him, for then he will have to
leave her again. The mail is gradually being
sorted, some of the chaps have got letters right
up to 16th April Have got none so far. As your
last was 2nd April, what a good time is coming
for me perhaps later this afternoon, or at latest
tomorrow. Letters from NSW are nearly always
towards the end, this being a Victorian Brigade
nearly all the letters are from Vic, & they must be
sorted first. We got a new Officer last night
seems a pretty decent sort of chap. It will make
the work considerably lighter makes one more to
share taking the fatigue parties out. Am taking
him with me tonight. It will be his first time
under fire. Hope we have a few shells, not too
close, to let him hear what they are like. It does a
chap good so hear a few burst & then find out
that the end of the world has not quite come.

3/ 
Docker is up at the Bomb School, the one I was at
recently. He will probably call & see me on his way
back tomorrow. The school ends then. Got an
Argus yesterday, dated 1st April, first for quite a
long time. A German prisoner went past here a
couple of days ago. It looked like something one
would catch in a rat trap with evil smelling
cheese for a Bait. Don't know who captured him
but he looked very tiny & sick of things in general
being marched along between two very big Australian
Soldiers with Bayonets Fixed. Daresay he was
some useless cuss the Germans had sent out to
get captured so he could tell us a lot of lie.s Things
are getting very much livelier on our Front now than
when we first took over. Our Chaps Strafe a
good deal more than the Tommies did & as a
natural consequence the Huns strafe us more in
return. Our chaps get very sick of doing nothing
& reckon we will never win the war by sitting
down & saying nothing. Wish we could have a
big offensive all along the line, to see if we could
not smash the blighters right up, but it seems to
be the Policy to just hold on & keep them fairly
busy, without making a Splash forward. Think
this is a pretty good time to tell you where we are.
Well I just won't, as it is against Regulations, but
about 5 Kilometres South of where that Post Card I
sent you sometime back was taken, would be very
close indeed to where I am at present. But I would not
dream of telling you the name of the place, Not I.

4/
Well old Dearie Girl, I'll be a very miserable
old man tomorrow night & I know you will not
be exactly happy either, when we think of the
night of 3rd June for the previous 3 years.
Blast old Kaiser Bill 14 or 15 times in quick
succession, & all his relations with him & the
whole Bally German Nation. I'd like to go
gunning after them this afternoon. There is one
of our Big War Planes going overhead making
a noise like a P 50 Planing Machines working
overtime & the windows of the Billet rattle about
every minute from the shock of one of our guns
firing & our Battn Band is playing away a
treat down the road. It is good so hear the old
Band again, It only started playing a couple of
days ago & they are going well already. The Band
Chaps are Stretcher Bearers when there is anything
doing & they are as plucky as Bull Ants. They
will go anywhere after a man who is hit & argue
to see who is to go first. Well old Darling, no
more now, with a big love for our little man &
such a great deal more for our little man's Mum
Your loving husband
Cecil 

48. 

Mrs C.R. Mills
C/. Dr A Burne
Kinellan
Dalley St
Waverley
New South Wales
Australia 

49./ 
France
5:6:16.
My Dear Old Pettie Girl
No luck yet with the Mail.
Nearly all the bags were sent back to Calais to be sorted
They were in a frightful mess 3 or 4 Brigades all
mixed up together, but we ought to get them back
again in a few days, probably with another mail
as well, as we hear rumours that another one is
due. I sent a letter to England last Friday by Capt
Kennedy to be posted there, hope it turns up to you
OK Nothing startling has happened since last I
wrote, merely the ordinary routine of occasional
strafe & fatigue work. Lost another man last
night, by having a pick stuck through whats
inside the seat of his pants whilst working in the
dark. Thats the second, so there will be an inquiry about
it tomorrow. Last Saturday afternoon we had a
very instructive gas demonstration. We went
along to the Gas School & they turned on Gas
twice as strong as it is possible for the Huns
to send it to our Trenches. We all had our Gas
Helmets on. I must admit I did not notice it
at all, except that it brought out the taste of the
chemicals in our Helmets pretty strongly. It is
the mixture in the fabric of our Helmets that
kills the Chlorine in the Gas. This talk about
Prussic Acid gas is all nonsense, it cannot
be sent over in a cloud at all. It is too light &
rises at once. We had some fun with the tear
shells I had been through this class of gas
before. We have a sort of motor goggle to combat

2/ 49./
this stuff that fits closely round the nose & over
the eyes. With the goggles I could stand as
much as they liked to turn on, but when I took
them off, I was blind inside 10 seconds & with
tears rushing down my cheeks like small
creeks. The stuff has a pleasant smell like
pineapples. There is absolutely no danger with
gas as long as a man looks after his helmet
& gets it on quickly. Sunday morning we
had the usual Church Parade & the Padre
brought along Gipsy Smith the celebrated
Evangalist to preach. He is classy as a
Preacher & is doing 3 months along the front.
He will be appreciated by the men I am sure.
Sunday afternoon we had a Bayonet fighting
Competition, for the best team in the Battn.
6 teams of 20 each, one from each Coy, one from
Machine Gunners & one from Battn Bombers
The Dags, as D Coy is familiarly called, pulled
off the Bacon very nicely, & collected the prize
of 150 Francs, we got 44 1/2 points out of 50
next Co was 5 1/2 points behind, so it was a good
win. Weather is fairly cold again, even though
it is supposed to be Summer. It was cold on
fatigue work last night, but tonight Im at
home very cosily writing to my old Dearie do not
like these night fatigue parties & am always glad
when the task is finished & we start for home.
Won't have to go for another 2 nights anyhow. We
are full strength for Officers now, so it makes
things a lot easier.