Trooper A L Button, Bedfordshire Yeomanry

We have left our horses behind and are acting as Infantry, which seems rather trying to us after being in first class horsemen out here so long. With the ***** and ***** Hussars we went into the first line of trenches for the first time on Jan 5. We are in four days, and then come back for 6 days rest, which we are greatly appreciated as we cannot get any sleep up there. We went up again for two days on working parties, such as carrying rations to other regiments in the front line, and making up the trenches that were broken down. We went in the front line again and came out on the 21st. Tomorrow we go up again. We have been very lucky all the time as we only had four casualties, and those were slight. We had none killed. The Germans sent us over bullets, hand-grenades, bombs, rifle-grenades, arial torpedoes, trench mortar shrapnel, whiz-bangs, Jack Johnsons and Coal Boxes, but luckily for us none of them found their mark. All the boys are well and very cheerful, but of course, like the rest long to see it all ended. There is a beautiful Cinema where we are going tonight at ******, so you see we have some life, although we are hearing the roll of the guns. Its fighting one minute and fun the next. I should like some of the folks at home to see the beautiful places all broken down to the ground. ******* has been taken and retaken seven times, so you can guess there is not much left of it. There is a lovely cemetery there for British Soldiers. At the head of each grave is a wooden cross with the name and number of the soldier and his regiment marked on it. I had a good look round, but did not see the grave of anyone I knew. There are still a lot of dead lying on the ground. There are thousands of rats in the trenches, they come out at night to eat up in the oddments of food. The stench is very bad too, but not so bad as might be expected. The fighting is pretty quiet, apart from the artillery duels and plenty of aeroplanes hovering round for observation. I wish to thank all at home for their kindness to the boys at the Front. All of the St Neots and Eynesbury boys are well. Tell all the boys at home we want them out here to help us win. We shall win, but nothing but men and shells will do it. – P.S. – Since I wrote the last paragraph we have been in the trenches again for the last time for a while, and we are now back to our horses. The Beds Yeomanry won the highest praise for the work they did, and were complimented by all the Generals and Colonels of every regiment.