Database: December 1914

Dear Alfie,

How are you, old chum? It seems like years since I left for France with the lads, but it's only been two months. I know in the past I've teased you, Alfie, but that bad leg of yours is a blessing in disguise. The truth is that you haven't missed out on any great excitement. Maybe at first it felt that way, but the longer things get on, the more this feels like a terrible punishment. It will be Christmas soon back in England, but not out on these cold and wet fields. This week we have dug out a new trench, and we all joked that we were digging our own graves. We laughed, Alfie, but I wonder if it wasn't the truth, and that we all knew it.

Your chum, Gerald.

(Private Gerald Collingfield returned to England and spent the rest of the war in a military hospital.)