3.12.14.

Dear Mr. Mansford,

I am awfully sorry I have been unable to write to you before but I here been extremely busy down here these last few days. I received Gracie's card early this morning (it was sent on from Shoreham) and although it is exactly 12 O'clock midnight now, it is the first opportunity I have had of replying. No doubt you think me a very unthankful chap for not dropping you even a card when those mugs were delivered, but I really thought you had had a letter from my C.O. You see I showed him your letter end he said an enormous number of nice things about you etc. etc. and told me he would write to you and thank you himself. However, the mugs apparently arrived Friday afternoon That I did not see them arrive as I was given a job Fri. morning which kept me busy right up until now, and is not finished yet. The whole blatt'lion was to be billeted in Worthing and I was told off to act for my company and make the necessary preparations for our entry, I practically lived in Worthing, interviewing householders and examining the rooms. On Monday the best part of the Battalion arrived end then came the awful job of dividing the men up into little groups for the different houses. All this was done in the pouring rain and right throughout the night, parties were continually turning up, wanting billets, as they had lost themselves or were doing " so-and-so " all the afternoon. Since then drafts have been coming in day by day from Shoreham, Moreover what with being an orderly officer the whole of one day and part of the next (during which tine I was practically ran off my feet) and then making out and sending in to the headquarters huge lists of addresses, names of householders and names of men billeted on them, you east Imagine I have been kept extremely busy until late in the night and have fairly fallen into my bed. However we are getting a little more settled now and we are beginning to get used to this new life. This billeting, although it has kept me going for the whole of this last week, has been an enormous experience for me, for there are many old soldiers down here who have bad their long service medals and yet they have never experienced this change before. (i.e. from canvas in to billets.) My major now tells me that he has written to you and tried to express his thanks to you for your kind gift to each of the men I, personally feel an awful rotter for not writing to you myself before. I can only plead guilty to giving in to the flesh and tumbling into bed as soon as I could. I have got quite a comfortable place quite near all my men and practically on the sea front. The men also say that they are having the time of their lives and I am certain that when we do go into huts again they will feel it very hard at first. What a glorious success for Dodd and Co. I never expected we were going to show up so well in the flying corps section. The Artillery is the next branch we trust look to. We have none in this so far have we? When war is over we must have one huge review of all our own particular army. It will be a grand thing. And now I feel I really must turn in for I have to be up again by six in the morning. Yours very sincerely, P.T.Smith.