France Jan 10, 1917

Dear Mother :-
Here we are again at the dugout where the rat got busy with the jam, and this is the first opportunity I've had to write since coming into the trenches this trip.

We are in supports now and I guess will get some rest for a few days. I think we need some after this last trip. What between listening post, firestep dirty, patrol, gas guard and fatigues, we haven't had much rest let alone sleep this trip.

Our listening post was a good one this trip. Two of us went out at a time and stayed an hour at a time. We were right out to our own were and our leads were about on the level with the ground. There was bright moonlight, and we could see everything for yards and yards.

We put three nights on the post and patrol then the rest of the trip we were on fatigues. We were making a large drying room for drying socks. Our wet socks are collected every day and dried for us, so we can always change into dry socks. Our boys for working at the drying room were from 12 to 4. That is we had two shifts in the 24 hours, noon till 4 a.m when we came back at 4 a.m we would put 2 hours work on our trench our meals took about three hours out of the remaining time and the gas guard about an hour and a half and we rubbed our feet with whale oil twice a day. The rest of the time was our own unless there was anything else to be done.

The Germans must be getting all in or something is the motto because our artillery is continually pounding away at the enemy limits and artillery and he never retaliates to any extent. We sprung another surprise on Fritz the other day. From a long time now he has had the best of it in trench mortars. His sausages and rum jars were heavier than our plum puddings but we have something that puts his mortars in the shade. It looks like a big saw log going thro' the air. We call it the "flying pig". It sure makes stuff fly when it hells. You know the saying why don't pigs fly? Well they do now so look out for something happening the other day.

I saw Bushey Scott the other day. We were on a fatigue down to the dump and he was going back to the line. We just simply said 'Hello' and kept going just to show you how often we see boys in the other battalions, that is the first time I've seen Aubrey since I left the base, and he has been within a few hundred yards all the time. I got seventeen letters last week that dollar Cliff sent reached here all night. You asked me if this is much discount on Canadian money. No there isn't the actual value of a France is 19 cents and we get 5 francs in exchange for a dollar. I'll have more time to write this week so you'll hear from me again soon. I guess Joel and Cliff will hear from me.

Fritz says he is..going to fight to a finish well well finish him all right.
Good bye for this time. Remember me to all.
With love from Gordon