Oct. 10-18
Dear Doris,
About time I scrawled a few lines to you, but as I said in my last, this is our busy season. – I went on leave just after writing you last time. – Went to Blighty this trip and had a rippin time.
– Spent most of it and (my hard earned quidlets as well) in Town, seeing shows and shopping. – Not having been over for 15 mos, my kit needed a lot of replenishment and I rounded up the theatres pretty well too. – Some great shows running just now. – I also had a few days at Bournemouth, with friends and a week end at my cousin's place in Surrey.
– Then I came back to this muddy country. – After being violently ill crossing the channel I came up the line to find my outfit in a most unhealthy spot and inside 24 hours had the nice new jacket and breeches that I had brought back from Blighty blown to – well ribbon, I'll say – as well as a lot of other things that happened to be lying round when Fritz landed a shell on my bivvy. – Luckily I wasn't at home at the time. – had only gone out about 5 minutes before, but a miss is as good as a mile. – Just the same I am no better off for clothes now that I was when I went on leave.
– For the last month or so have hardly been located in one place for any length of time. – Anyplace was home where we rolled up in our blankets. – Things have been moving right along, and that has given my crowd plenty of work. – I think I told you when I shifted in the summer that I was getting the command of the divisional bridging unit. – We have had several jobs in the recent shows, which were fairly good. – Ours is just the light bridging which has to be done during the advance in order to enable the field artillery to follow up the attack, consequently we have to follow close on the heels of the attacking infantry. – It's not bad when the Infantry have mopped up well, but it is a bit of a nuisance to find that they have overlooked a Bosch machine gun post that overlooks the road you have to bring your wagons down. – Horses and wagons are a fairly decent target but of course we don't loiter. – Several of my men got decorations after the last do. – Lost some of my best horses which is a bally nuisance and you sort of get attached to a good team.
I can quite imagine the bunch you must have round the house in the way of boys from camp. – Sort of like the place I strike when I'm in England. – An awfully jolly family and they practically keep open house to the chaps in camp round there. – Am enclosing a snap taken on the lawn last time I was down there, with a couple of the girls and a chap from the Tank Corps – A fellow needs to get a touch of house life at least once a year or he gets a bit uncouth, altho I have long since got over being homesick. – I think I shall be more homesick when it is all over and I get back home than I have been all the time I've been away, if you know what I mean. – I sort of dread the finish and going back to the old life. – The old surroundings will bring back memories of things as they were before we left home and which will never be the same again. – My best pals have gone west in this game. – I don't miss them now for there is always a certain amount of excitement to keep you going and make you forget things. – It's when you settle down quietly that things like that will become noticeable. – I often feel when I see the name of another of the old crowd in the casualty list, that I don't care whether I go back or not.
– There aren't many of us left and if we have done our job out here it doesn't much matter what happens after. – If they have any band playing flag waving performances when we get back, I shall call it downright sacrilegious, for the majority of the men who will be there to hear the cheers will be the bombproofers ("slackers" i believe you term them) and fellows who waited to be dragged into the army. – The remnant of the crowd that came over early in the game will feel that it is an occasion for sadness rather than celebration when they think of the ones who left Canada with them but are not coming back.
I'm afraid, Doris, you will think I am a frightfully dour sort of person to be running along like this just at a time when we have the hun on his knees. It's fine to feel that we are now achieving the end we have been striving for during the last four years, but I've been in it too long to feel wildly jubilant over victory. – I look on it as a satisfactory ending to a dirty job of work. – I have no sympathy for the german people and I hope no one pays any attention to their peace overtures. – We'll give them "peace"
– Forgive this fearfully dismal epistle won't you, but really I feel horribly fed up just at present.
– Give my love to the folks and write when you have time. – By the way you can address me as Captain now. – Put my third star up about 6 weeks ago and of course am terribly dignified and stuck up now.
Cheerio, old thing,
Your aff Cousin
Murray