October 26, 1918
Dear Mother:-
I don't think I have written since I changed posts and came here. I wrote in my last letter from what used to be our front line post. But one night I got an order to come here and so I came. This is still nearer the front at the headquarters of the battalion [handwritten in: Seuola San Rocco]. The major is wonderful and so polite that I hardly know where I am at, for all I can do is say "Thanks". The medical lieutenant is a scream also. He is large and portly, but very full of fun. Last night he asked me if I would move the flivver from the headquarters of the battalion to the "poste de secours" where he has to work. The two places are only a hundred yards or so apart in dugouts under an elevated road like a railroad embankment at home. I used to be in a very nice dugout with a lieutenant, but now I, too, am near the "poste de secours" in a cell of my own, so that the Big Three: the doctor, the ambulance and I - can be close to one another. I call this dugout a cell, as it is just high enough for me to stand up in and rub the top of my head, and if I want to do exercises in the morning for the benefit of my arms, I have to stand with one shoulder touching one side wall and then I can raise my other arm and just rouch the opposite wall with my finger tips. The cell's length is about six inches more than its height. But there is more to this story. I am not the only occupant of this cell. I have two companions - tame ones - and Lord knows how many wild ones, or, to put it more briefly, I seem to have sublet part of the flat to several families of mice. They have a great time testing everything from shaving soap to Frasers mints.
We have seen quite a bit of shelling lately. The paper - Italian paper - said this morning that up in the mountains, the Italians had taken 2700 prisoners, but none of that action has reached here yet. It was just as well we moved the car yesterday or I am afraid I woudn't have it any more. This evening they were shelling the elevated road and one shell came over a bit too far and burst about 15 yards beyond the road and the dugout under it, almost exactly where the car had been. There were three or four Italian officers standing outside in front of the dugout when this happened, but no one was hurt and we all got under cover before they could put another so close. The day before yesterday, too, the Austrians either were after me or the road just as I wanted to go by, for two shells came in - one fell short and one burst quite a bit behind the car.
This afternoon I didn't have any men to carry so I took a chance on there being any wounded and took down most of the motor and cleaned carbon, spark plugs, etc. It is only about three hundred yards to the enemy lines, but that doesn't make much difference. Only one shell, or rather pieces of it, for it burst high up in the air, made me duck, but that one duck also ripped across the knee of my pants so I had another job when I had finished with the car. There was one good result after it, though - the Italian soldati weren't quite so anxious to stand out in the open around the car and watch me work and also get in the way.
A Life and a copy of Association Men came two days ago. Also two very cunning and informing letters from Bet which sound as though everything was all right at home. I'm glad you got my photos O.K. I will try to send some more when I have them developed.
Everything is fine - benissimo as the Italians say.
Harvey