Seaford,
21/23/17. – 2 A.M.

My Dear Sister,

Well Honey, I see it is more than a month since I wrote you, and it is not that I have not time now either, but I just keep putting it off.

I am on my fifth week of night duty, and must say I like it some, I have the middle floor of Raven’s Croft which includes a large ward of 21 beds, a small one of five beds, and another small one of eight beds.

The patients in the two small wards I never see from 8 P.M. till about 5.30 A.M., when I start taking morning T.P.R.’s I sit in the big ward and have a light burning. We have two radiators, but I keep enough windows open to keep the place thoroughly aired and on a cool night, I have to wear a bath robe and my great coat and then I am some cool.

Except for giving an occasional dose of cough medicine, I have only to attend one patient in the big ward. I did have two, but one, who was much the sicker of the two, has quite recovered, altho of course, still in bed. Hornblower, the other one, has recovered from his pneumonia, but has developed some heart trouble, I think it is an inflammation of the lining or something like that, and I believe always fatal. He is better one day and worse the next, usually only semi-conscious and of course needs a great deal of waiting on. I do hope he will pull thro. His wife, mother, and sister, are boarding down town.

You see, in this branch of the service, writing, mending, reading,, time out, etc. all has to be done between 6.30 and 9.30 P.M. when on day duty, which is only three hours and a very tired three at that. Now on nights, you have at least six hours for this and can get out from 2 to 6 P.M. whenever you wish besides. Another consideration is that all the hard work has to be done in the daytime. Of course you have to give up your evenings, which in my case however, is not much of a sacrifice. We are supposed to get one pass till midnight each week, but have to get a supply, which is of course hard. I have only had one pass since I came on nights, and as the fellow I was going with was turned down for his I did not use mine. We get dinner at 11 P.M., steak, roast beef, or mutton, peas or corn and potatoes, at present, but as we are on the verge of a potatoe famine, we will not have them much longer. Also have rice pudding about five nights a week and we sure enjoy it. At 4 A.M., we have breakfast, usually a cereal, bacon and egg altho not always this much. We have only two meals but as much as four in the day time, then we can have tea with the day men at 5 P.M., if we wish. I buy jelly powder and make myself jelly and we can have canned soups etc. that we could not on days. You can see that from my standpoint, night duty is best. They were talking of putting me on days, but I kicked and as not many like nights, they may leave me.

About three days a week, I sleep from 7.15 or 7.30 till 5.30 or 6.00, the rest of the time, I arise any time from 2 to 4 P.M. and walk down town and around the prom., admire the ladies and talk to those who will.

I have made the acquaintance of a nice little kid of 18 to 20 (possibly more tho), who besides taking the place of a postman, has her little war plot of potatoes. Everyone over here has a plot to grow food, as they want to be prepared for even a more strenuous blocade next winter and every bit of available space is being ploughed and planted, good idea too.

I suppose you know from my letters home, that I was lucky enough to find a bunch of the 168 boys in camp right near the hospital. Lester Jackson and Money come over quite often. Rodney and Ault did too but left for France on Monday morning. If they went across on Monday, they had the roughest channel to cross that I have seen in the seven months I have been on the South Shore. Do you know you and I started this work about the same time, and I somehow feel that if nothing happens and we are both spared, that we will finish about the same time too.

Jim McKinnon and Nixon are in the camp here, young Dewey Blackie Crossett and I don’t know how many more. They all tell me to stick to the red + [Red Cross] as long as I can too, I always try to feed them up when they come my way and I can generally give them something or other.

What do you think of me not getting any Canadian mail this month, till Monday the 19^th? Every week without a letter, seemed to double the distance. Monday, I had one from Nert., written March 2, then yesterday, two from Nert, two from Dad, one from Mother and one from Merle. I am about the only one here who had any mail too, as I cabled my address and it comes direct, while the Army P.O. mail is so heavy, that none has come thro yet. We do not know where the delay has been, but hope it will not occur again for some time.

These letters contain the first news I have had about Bessie Wilson’s death and about Grandfather Davis not being around.

What do you think about the three 168 Majors, returning to Canada? If, as I have heard, they offered to revert and were turned down, it is all right, but if as I have also heard, they chose returning to reverting, it is all wrong, I am inclined to believe this last is the correct version. Believe me, I would not like to be Nass, and return to face the parents of the boys I signed up, to take to France with me. I think it will play the deuce with his business too, can’t see anything else for it.

I just gave Codeine to a patient who has been trying to cough his head off for the last ten minutes and he said it was a wonder I didn’t wait till he died before I gave it to him. I told him I was writing a letter and didn’t want to leave it, so he excused me.

I have had a couple of letters from Mildred Clark, who seems to be enjoying herself, which is what most of them are here for. They sent a couple of sisters from Eastbourne to look after my sick man. They both stick around in the daytime, but I never see them after 8 P.M.

Lovingly,
Worth.