TCD MS 11290/8 folio 1 recto
2 November [1917]
Dear Mother
Since I wrote last we have had a glorious victory at least thats what the papers at home will say I’m sure. I sat under the lee of a hill the whole time awaiting orders & never saw a shell or a bullet the whole time which is undoubtedly the right way to fight.
As far as I can make out we really do seem to have been very successful and to have had extremely few casualties and up to the day of the fight everything certainly went like clock work.
I have had a nice soft job on the whole simply being sent out to find & report on water. Yesterday I came across the first local inhabitants a small camp of Bedouin far wilder & more uncivilised than anything I saw on the western front. They seemed very friendly and showed me water gave me information about the best tracks. One old lady wanted to give me bread and milk and they fetched up water for our horses