From: Somewhere in France
Sun., 1 Apr. 1917
post marked - Montreal - 23 Apr.
post marked - Mallorytown - 24 Apr.

Dearest Mother -

It is about time I was writing again, is it not? I hope you get the letters I do write without any delay. It is very nearly a month now since I have had any mail. When it does come and it ought to be soon now, it will be very welcome indeed.

I was travelling on my birthday and what I have seen I have liked very well. We passed large meadows and flat cultivated country reminding one somewhat of Canada as villages were not as close together as in Eng. - country is larger. We did not travel third class as in Eng. but in box cars built either for horses or men. We managed very well and could see much of country and at night laid our blankets on floor and slept there. While on train, we lived on bully beef (canned corn beef) and hard tack and sometimes not much of that, but as we get settled, rations are getting better.

The French pick up English words very quickly and it is not so very difficult to make oneself understood. The villages are so different from ours - so old with cobbled streets - dark and narrow and bleakstone walls on either hand. One often sees two or three horses, one ahead of another, instead of abreast pulling a heavy load that is balanced on two wheels. It must be hard on horses' necks - probably that is why they wear such heavy collars. I have seen some of the peasants wearing large wooden clogs for boots and many wear a waterproof cape with hood to go over head. Street cars have a similar sound and the locomotives are large and apparently very efficient.

I noticed a peasant ploughing. I thought the plough he used very good. It has two small wheels near the front and then over the plough (plough-share) is an inverted one so that he can plough a furrow and then, by turning his plough upside down, plough back right beside the furrow he has just made. Thus he does not need to plough around a strip and leaves no hollows & ridges.

My address is not the same as before but I do not know whether you need new address for a week or two yet, as quite possibly it will change again. There has been a change in battery, similar to change before in other battery and as before, I am not at present in any battery but, in a good and possibly safer branch of artillery - the Divisional Ammunition Column. Others from battery are with me in this. But, it is quite probable there will be more changes. I may get back to a battery as they take reinforcements for them from the D.A.C.

Things are running along very smoothly for me at present and you have no cause to be anxious about me at all. It is a little disagreeable but not as bad as it might be - as it is further up the line. You never saw such mud and it rains a good deal but a sunny day brightens things up and dries mud up remarkably fast. Once it starts to dry, we will soon have dust.

I am trying to write in a general way and not give information. Sometimes, if letters are not as they should be, they are destroyed by officer and one never knows whether letter has gone or not. Of course, they usually try to return letter if not right. It would be much easier to write and much more interesting for you if I could fill in dates, places etc. My address right now would be - D. Echelon, 1st Canadian D.A.C., B.E.F., France, but I would possibly be more sure of mail if you let all be for a week or two.

Hope you can make this out. My hands are dirty and cramped and am not in a position to write as easily as I might. There are YMCA huts and army canteens here and they make things more pleasant. You see, I can still get YMCA paper to write on.

Believe me, I am well. Sincerely hope all at home are well. Very best love to you.
Yours affectionately,
R.G. Brown
(We have to put signature to letters now.)