England Feb. 11th 1917

Dear Ollie:-

Will try and write you a few lines but can tell you don’t feel much like writing today.  The Bn. I suppose is in France and here we are penned up here in the hut for mumps.  There are six huts of us left behind and whoever gets the mumps will be cut off the strength and left for good.  So you can imagine how if feel.  For if I don’t get the mumps must be mump-proof.  What is left of us will join the Bn. in France as soon as we get out of quarantine.  I did not get any mail last week and don’t suppose will get any until we get to France.  Squire had a letter from the old man Fri.  Too bad about old Sammy.  The old man thinks it will finish him sure.  Well I would be a good thing for the old chap if he did kick out for he sure can’t take much comfort in living.  If Sophia heard me say that she would skin me alive I suppose. 

Well Lloyd Durling was in to see us yesterday.  He is looking fine.  Don’t know what Bn. he is with, forget.  But they are just across the road from us.  He tells me he heard Leslie Barteaux was turned down in France.  It’s funny though; Leslie was as tough as a pine knot.  Some one stole one of my gloves the third day I wore um.  Hope they get caught in no man’s land and freeze both hands off at the wrist.  I feel worse than a bear with a sore head and if I don’t get out of here reckon I will be some worse.  But I haven’t given up hopes yet.  I have a desperate cold and some times my throat is sore but that only adds a few more gray hairs to my head. 

Throat pretty sore this a.m. but feels all right now so guess it’s not mumps.  There is another Bn. moving in tomorrow.  From the West I think.  Hope they will be obliging for we have to depend on outsiders for everything we get.  Angus did not go in quarantine with us this time.  So he went with the Bn.  Worse luck.  Wish he was here with us.  It seems like a funeral here today.  No one about and no noise.  There are 3 platoons here from D. Coy so we are not alone in the soup.  Capt. Anderson didn’t have much of a Coy to take only 1 platoon and 3 sections. 

Hell can’t write today.

Jack