A secret code
Let us return to page 5 of the letter. The last paragraph is curious. It starts with an innocent list remembering Christmas, but then the language gets decidedly forced.
It was Dominic Hibberd, in Notes & Queries, who first noticed something of much more importance. Hibberd was aware that in his letters to his mother, Owen often included codes to indicate to her where he was.
Note the marginal note at the bottom of 'Not So Bad!'. This in fact is linked (one assumes) to one of Owen's codes. The trigger word is 'mistletoe'. Owen's mother knew that when she saw that (it appears rather awkwardly in the prose) she was to record the second letter of the following lines. In this case 'S-E-R-R-E' or 'Serre' the place where Owen was currently located.
