Cheshire Ridge, Anzac, Gallipoli, 9/12/15

Dear Bob,
We have been back here from Lemnos now for about five weeks and expect any day to find ourselves in the middle of winter. We had a fall of snow a week ago which made things very disagreable for a day or two and which sent a good number away frostbitten.
I recieved your parcel of butterscotch a week ago it was very welcome and did not last long I can tell you. I noticed that although it was posted in Wellington it bore an address in Mother's writing so presume she has been paying you another visit.
The weather just now is quite mild again and it is hard to imagine that only a week ago we were stamping round in an attempt to keep the ciruculation going. Waterproof capes have been provided for those men actually in the trenches and we are promised gumboots so that the next fall of snow should not inconvenience us a great deal.
Our tunnels for which we are digging for winter quarters and as protection from high explosives will soon be finished so that we will be fairly comfortable by Xmas at the latest. To get underground is the only real refuge from the cold winds that we sometimes have here.
There is a big mail in and we are all eagerly waiting for it to be sorted.
I trust you are all in good health again and that Neil and Marjory are quite recovered. Tell Elsie that I received a parcel that other day that had broken open in the post. All that reached me was a big woollen scarf and one mitten tied up with a bit of string with a label attached. The label bore a Maori Hill postmark so that I presume the parcel was from the McNicols. The scarf was very handy on the cold nights we had.
The position we are in now is about the softest one we have been in yet although it is at the same time one of the most interesting. The Turks are about 300 yards away. There is a steep scrub covered gully inbetween and we have to keep a sharp lookout. We have a fine view of all the country from Anafarta to the Salt Lake and behind us to Imbros and Samothrace, our trench being about 500 feet from the top of '971' or Chanuk Bahr [sic] so it is variously called (the maps in the papers mark it '974').
Well I must not say to much or I will offend the censor.
I will close with best Regards to Elsie and yourself, Marjory and Neil.
Rawei