Belgium,
November 28, 1917

Dearest Mother:

Sent you a few lines on the 23rd and want to write today. First I want to thank you for the splendid parcel containing cake, chocolate, caramels, coffee, peanuts and oxo which I received yesterday. I came in off twenty-four hour O.P. duty to find it waiting for me and a drink of coffee and a piece of cake certainly tasted good. I also received Clemmie's parcel containing socks, tobacco and the gloves you sent a couple of days ago. Many thanks for them. They are an ideal fit and will be just right for our work. Also a Christmas parcel from Mrs. Green the other day containing a dandy French cap together with socks and eats. I will write to Aunt Ellen as soon as I get time and thank her for the
candy and coffee. You ask about winter underwear. We were issued with two suits a short while ago.

I am pretty well set for the winter. Am also well supplied with socks while my boots are as I said before O.K. You ask about the French book Claude gave you to send. No, it never came. Don't know what could have happened to it unless it was torpedoed. You ask about the Witness and World Wide. Yes I get them and certainly appreciate them. One certainly gets some splendid reading from them. Am glad to hear that autos are getting a hold on the Island. It is not before time and I think I am not far astray when I say that a couple of years' opposition will have died down and almost everybody will begin to appreciate their place in the industrial life of the community.

Had a letter from Laura Gordon a short time ago. She says that Heber is again in France. I am hoping to see him again as soon as we move back with the Canadians. Have not seen Joe Clark for an age and will try to hunt him up the first chance I get. See Joe Hogan, Dave Miller and that bunch quite often. Had a letter from Murdoch written from England. He is in the railway construction draft. Also had a letter from Walter Randall. Don't think I told you that Bart is in England. Went over on leave and then reported sick with his eyes. You know they were always bad. Had a letter from him a few days ago. He is getting on fine. He is undergoing treatment and incidentally having a good time of it.

I suppose election is all the talk in Canada now. We are I believe voting on the first and second. I believe every Canadian male and female on military service has a vote regardless of age so I imagine I will be casting my first vote somewhere in Belgium. I think the soldier's vote will go strongly in favor of union government. Of course, it is hard for us to understand the situation fully, but this much we know: we want conscription and we want it without delay and also want to see the war over as quickly
as possible and so we believe forcing the government to the country at this time was an unfortunate mistake and also we believe that changing government would cause unnecessary delay all around and especially in the sending of more men and so of two evils I think that one is choosing the lesser in supporting the union government. Perhaps as I said I cannot understand the situation and may be looking at it from a wrong point of view but I am voting, as I think, right and no man can do more.

Well it is two years today since we pulled out of Halifax Harbor and said goodbye to the shores of Canada, two long years in one way and yet so fully has our time been taken up that it seems not more than six months. Being always in a bunch, with never a care or worry scarcely a minute drags, and never could one get into a better bunch of fellows than the ones came over with us. Never was a truer word spoken than when it was said that Prince Edward Island gave of the flower of her manhood in recruiting this battery for they have proven themselves strong, brave, true and perfect gentleman from the word go. They are men who believed in doing their duty as it comes to them without fear or favor and so by giving their best to others to reap the greater benefit themselves and with a clear conscience to face the world and say: I have done my duty as it came to me. I need have no fear for the future. If I were to worry I might be the means of causing my comrades to be downhearted. So I will meet the world with a smile and a joke and trust that smile to carry me through. That it is I think the spirit in which the whole body of Canadian troops face the future, and especially if it true in our own particular unit, so is say is it any wonder the time passes quickly. To put it in a word we are living intensely, as it were in a dream, and it is hard to realize all that is passing. Often a fellow feels as
though he were going to waken and find it all a bad dream yet not until it is over will he realize how real it really has been.

I wonder what the next two years will bring forth. In the spring the future looked bright and everything seemed to point to a settlement this fall. But the trouble in Russia and Italy's failure have darkened the horizon for the time being. However there is a silver lining behind and I believe peace this fall is not impossible.

Well I don't think I have much news and you will be tired reading this scrawl so I will say au revoir. Sent some Christmas cards a few days ago. Sorry I could not send something more but did not have a chance. Wish I could run in for Christmas dinner but under present conditions I would rather eat it out here and we will hope to be together again next Christmas. And now I must close wishing you all a very happy to Christmas and a bright cheery new year.

Your loving son, Harold