18 February 1916 Somewhere in France

Dear Mother, Father and the rest,

I received your welcome letter of January 29 yesterday and was pleased to learn that everyone was okay. It surely is a funny winter for Ontario to be having. No snow and very mild weather like you reported in January. We have only had one snow flurry and it was all gone off the ground in less than half a day. It is raining more this month than the last and when we get past this, we have the rainy part of the season gone and no one will be sorry. I do not think it has been as bad this year as last, at any rate not as bad as I had imagined the winter weather would be out here. It is no doubt quite bad enough in the trenches. There has been quite a bit of scraping up a little north-east of us and a couple of our battalions were ordered up there as a reserve. They had only come back to rest too, after being in the trenches for five months and the trenches that the Canadians hold our about the worst on the British front. You see the country around here is so low that it is easily flooded and in the rainy weather it is quite a contract to drain it effectively.

Well I was quite surprised to learn that Bill had taken the Commission bug so suddenly. It will no doubt go through. I should have thought he would have waited until he got over here or at least have tried to get into some Canadian unit. I think he would like that much better than the Imperial Army. There are about a dozen of our boys going up tomorrow to parade before the Colonel for Commission. I don't know how they are going to get on, but if they are all successful in getting them, it will make quite a hole in our unit. I believe there are quite a few Canadian boys going after Commissions in the Imperial Army but I think they are sort of given the preference too.

If  Bill gets it okay he will be over here pretty soon. How long does he think it will be before he gets away. He will be attached to some of the Derby recruits I suppose unless he would get the chance of getting on a reserve unit that sends out reinforcements. He will be getting to England at the best time of year for training at any rate. I had a short letter from Mrs. Jeff's yesterday. She invited me to stay there if I am going to be in London on my leave and also Bill has an invitation as well. I am not sure that I'll stay in London when I go but I would like to stay for a few days. We get seven clear days in England and if I go to Scotland I will not have much time to stay in London. However all this is mere speculation for my number on the leave list is 191 and they are only at number five now. You can judge when I'll get mine from that. It is more than I can do if you can. They will no doubt increase the number going very shortly and as all the senior NCOs and officers who do not take numbers get away, there will be a quicker run on the numbers of Privates.

I'll write to Bill as soon as I can and ask him when he is expects to be in England. He will no doubt be writing me himself in the near future and telling me all his plans.

There seems to be more going on over there than there is here, for we hardly find enough interesting news to fill a letter and if it was not for the letters we have to answer, we would not be able to write anything. It is lights out now and so I'll be I'll have to ring off and get to bed. I'll finish this in the morning if I get time.

Yours lovingly,
Harold.

10 November 1915 Somewhere in Belgium

Dear Mother,

Received your welcome letter of Oct. 24 on Sunday and was very glad to get it. On Monday I got one from Vern and was glad to hear from him also. Write often Vern and Norma and tell me all about what is going on at school etc.

I have been getting my letters fairly regularly but a parcel that Mae sent from Eaton’s has not arrived. She said it was sent the same day as the letter that she mentioned it in. I got the letter nearly 2 weeks ago. Also I have not received any Teeswater papers for nearly 3 weeks or those magazines you spoke of sending. Several other fellows have been having the same trouble so I guess the mail must be congested and they will be along in good order some of these days. If parcels are being held up now I wonder what it will be like at Xmas.

The address of Mrs. A. Jeffs is 34 Dalebury Rd., Wandsworth Common, Upper Tooting, London, S.W. Bill has the address and you can get it from him if you lose this.

(This pen needs a good cleaning out so excuse any extra blots. )

There has not been very much doing on the line for several weeks now and it is just a case of stay here and put in time for the field ambulances.

The rain that we have been getting lately has caused quite a bit of trouble in the front line trenches both on ours and the enemy’s. The fellows brought in from these trenches say the walls are so soft that they are coming in and all they get to do is to repair them.

We expected to take over the hospital last week, but it didn’t come off. I think probably it will be this Saturday instead. I wish we were there now for I am awfully sick of hanging around putting in time and not doing anything. It would not be so bad if it did not get dark so early. The sun sets here about 4 o’clock now and by 5 it is too dark to be outside and so it makes the evening pretty long. We must be inside at 8:30 and lights out at 9:30. We are nearly always in bed long before that time though, but when we do so little we do not feel much like sleeping. We cannot go more than 400 yards away from the hospital without a pass and there is roll call at 6:30 am, 11 am and 3 pm to see that we are all here and also to hand out small jobs.

On Sat. last we had  our first bath in 2 weeks. A bath out here is a very momentous occasion and even if it is done in record time and in a place where mud is the most predominant thing, we generally feel a little more like human beings. A new bath house is being constructed, and while it is being built, the only place that could be gotten anywhere near were some tents. There were 4 tubs in a bell tent and when a pail full of hot water was put into each tub it made so much steam that we could hardly see anything.

After we got our duds off and were into the tub, a man came around to the tents and collected all our dirty underwear and gave us clean in its place. After we were through, or rather after the attendants thought we ought to be through, the tubs were dumped right on the ground and we had to get dressed without getting any mud on us as best we could. Of course it was about as impossible as to walk on eggs without breaking them.

Say wasn’t that a great piece of work by the P. Society on Trafalgar Day. Teeswater did splendidly considering what she has been doing right along. The million that the Province raised will come in fine before the winter is over.

We have been issued with capes (waterproof) & sweaters. Also we expect to get long boots & waterproof coverings for our tops. I have never been bothered by the cold yet or the rain either, for that matter, as we have not had to be out in it very much.

Our grub is not too bad just now. If we manage properly and do not get too greedy, we can generally have butter for every meal and we get lots of jam and bread and biscuits. Fried meat comes nearly as often as stew now and by boiling the bacon instead of frying it, we can get a bigger piece each & it is better than being all shriveled up.

Well how does Bill like it in barracks? What part of the Ex. are they in? Do they have permanent passes? I guess he will be writing soon and telling me all about it. What do the people over there think of the Balkan situation? We do not get the papers regularly enough to follow things. When Kitchener gets over there he will likely start things moving in the right direction.

I had to stop this last night as my candle got too low and I want to get this finished before noon so that it will go on today’s mail. They have a new system now for outgoing mail. It is collected at 12 noon instead of 4 pm. By doing it like that, it can be censored in the afternoon and sent away to the rail-head the same day. It saves 24 hrs. by the new system.

It is a fine clear day and there are a lot of airplanes up this morning. Favourable weather is so scarce now that they have to make the best use of any day that the clouds are not too low. We got another one the other day - Taube I mean.

The sky had been very dull and dark all day but about 3 or 4 it cleared up rather suddenly. Almost immediately airplanes from both sides were busy. I counted 7 all in a very small area. They had several machine gun duels and the bur-rrrrrr of the machine guns could be heard distinctly. We did not lose any machine guns but the Germans had one of theirs winged.

I am on barrack room fatigue and have been nearly all morning sweeping and cleaning up. We can go over the floor every hour and get about a peck of mud. It is a day’s work and a different man is appointed each day. 

Well it is mail time so I will have to get this into the box. I am real well and trust you are the same. Send this on as I have not got any more green envelopes so will have to economize. I got 4 or 5 extra ones at the chateau and along with our own issue I have been pretty well supplied.

Your loving son,
Harold