No. 4 Canadian General
Hospital.
Basingstoke,
Jan 26/18.

Dear Miss Shand -

Your welcome letter of Dec 9th received and found money order enclosed. You should not have done that but since you did, I took you at your word and spent it in the ward. You may think it strange how I spent it but after all the main object is to get some thing the men are going to appreciate. One of the wards had no clock and the patients were always asking me the time so I used the money in getting a clock for the mantle piece so all get the benefit of it. And they are enjoying it in a practical way. Thanks so much. I am glad you liked your little waists. You see I could not get just exactly what you wanted but more and more we have to take substitutes. Now before I go any further I must tell you of a very delicious box of apples which found there way to me. I am sure you were wondering why you had not heard[?] this of their arrival. But there is a reason and also a good joke on me. When the box came I looked out side and inside for the name of the sender but had to remain in ignorance and my hunt had no result. In a few days I get a letter from a Toronto person saying a box had been sent to me from Eatons, although the contents were not mentioned. Of course, I at once jumped to the conclusion that this was the parcel spoken of in the letter although you in your letter had also spoken of a box, some how I did not think of it coming from Eatons and I thought yours would contain some little message for me. Any way I straight away dispatched a letter of thanks to this Toronto person who as a matter of fact I have never even seen– he being an acquaintance of some cousins of mine. Well this morning I was disposing of the empty box and my eye caught sight of something sticking out from a fold of the box and upon pulling it out found out the secret of the box. What the man must have thought when he received my letter, I am sure I don’t know. He must have thought I was crazy. Well to return to the apples – they were delicious. They were absolutely perfect- not one bad spot in the whole box and I need not tell you how much I enjoyed them. Had I not found the card, the three of you would have still been wondering their fate. Many many thanks for them. I am glad you like my picture. I hope Mrs Clare and Miss Mc Namara also received theirs also Dr and Mrs Forster as all went on the same mail.

What ever made Dr Williams go to South Africa? I suppose it was a case of “doing as you are told”. I have at least seen the [?] Coast anyway.

Poor Dr Cumberland won’t be having much fun down in Salonika with all the town in ruins.

Is it not terrible the awful things that are happening now. Whole cities wiped right out, soon cease to be a wonder in face of some thing more terrible happening. The disaster at Halifax will bring the war very close home to some of the Canadian people. I never felt safer than when in the Harbor at Halifax just a few weeks before the explosion. How little we know in what great danger we may be in when we think we are safe. The sisters here have all subscribed to the fund for relief. One of the sisters stationed here lost all she had belonging to her through it. She was allowed to go home at once. 

I am on night duty now and have half my time in after which I expect to go to London for a few days. Hope the Germans don’t take a notion to visit at the same time 

I have been wondering what has happened to Col McVicar. I do hope we are not going to lose him from this unit. 

[arrow pointing right] I am on a medical ward now and of course not nearly so interesting as a surgical one. Is it not funny how every one coming over seas has firmly fixed in their minds the one idea of nursing only badly wounded men. We forget that if the men are fortunate enough to escape a shell, or bullet, they are sure to fall prey to the exposure they must suffer hence rendering their condition much more serious than the man who has stopped a bullet providing he survives at all. Equally they are heros, but strange to say it is the man who can show a scar who is “the hero”. Still it is the same old world. People must see before they will believe.
[arrow pointing left]

I got such a nice parcel from Mrs Forster and Mrs Tyrell, and things that I needed too. Do you know that just all at once shopping, along certain lines, has become quite difficult. But really we are far from suffering yet.

Can you image me on a bicycle?  If it had not been for the persistance of Miss Huston my room mate I should never have learned, but now I ride to town frequently, weather permitting. 

Will you please tell Miss Coombs her old paster was down here last night. He is on leave from France and is looking very well. 

Will you ask Mrs Clare if she knew Miss Dolmoge who graduated in London? She has been here some weeks waiting to go to France. She is to be matron of No 10 Stationery Hospital. 

A few weeks ago, Mark Hamburg honored this hospital by giving the patients an evening’s entertainment. He is wonderful, is he not? I have never heard any thing like him. 

Well I must close, thanking you all again

With much love,
Lena A. Davis.