Renaux, Flandre Anatole, Belgique

January 26, 1918

Dear People,

When I last wrote I think we were staying at a little town north east of Tomnar where the company was playing to the infantry. On Friday the gang moved up to this place, the other side of Tomnar to play to the artillery. It is a town of a fair size about twenty thousand I should think, but dead as a door nail. When the lorries moved out Friday morning I was down at the battalion, about 3 miles away, looking after some business and consequently had to chase up the party on my own. I got a train into Tomnar, stayed there over night and had a nice twenty four kilo walk out to Renaux the next morning/ So I was feeling very fresh, the walk was quite enjoyable except for these beastly cobbled roads which are enough to lame you for life.

No letters from you since last writing nor from Bill nor from the Andersons. I had one though, from Col Torg’s secretary re the Edinburgh business which now looks as though it would go through though goodness only knows there will be little enough time left before June if things don’t hurry up. There are a hundred men to be selected from France. I received a printed application form which I had to have signed by the Colonel of my battalion so that was the reason I went down to my old unit. Everything was fixed up satisfactorily so I expect now that in about a fortnight I ought to be starting work.

The troops are getting very impatient over demobilization and if it is not speeded up there is bound to be trouble. It does seem that they might have had the fall rolling before this especially as overseas troops were relieved of further duty the day the armistice was signed. However even now it is

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