May 27th, 1915.
We are in fine shape here. Today I was over with a waggon getting some ordnance stores. On the way we went through quite a large city near here. There are splendid shops and cafes and after a lunch of fried eggs, toast and chocolate I purchased a pair of horse clippers. I rode down the other day with Ell and we had a glass of beer and bought some boot polish. These highly interesting anecdotes will serve to anchor in my memory the places we happen to be at, so keep the diary, so to speak, and we will make a map showing the different places when we get home. We have to take the horses to the canal to water as the ditches are simply terrible. There is a scum on all the water and it smells very offensively. Hence we have to send the water cart some distance to a well to be filled and then chlorinate it, even for boiling.
There is very little firing just now and quite a breeze has sprung up with a rainy tendency; we certainly need a bit as the dust is very bad and the weather has been so hot that crops will suffer if we do not get a shower soon.
I got the "chewing tobacco" cake during the week. It was in fine shape just ready to cut in thin slices and "manger." You and Babe will have to buck up in French when I get home, because Hope and I will be old hands at it.
I am enclosing two letters which I wish you would keep for me. One is from Mrs. Lovekyn, the mother of one of our gunners who died of wounds. It is the kind of letter I like to get. The other is from Mrs. Wilson.
I was just remarking to one of the other officers here, how Gerald, Jeff, Nigger and I used to sit: : at the old Model School. The first is prisoner, the second killed, and Nigger a sergeant in the 12th Battery We shake hands here now on greeting anyone we have'nt seen lately. It is sort of instinct as a reaction from our strenuous time at the other place.
If you want to send a real delicacy please make it a few packets of Sweet Caporal cigarettes. We get tired of the English ones. Just send a couple about twice a month for a change.
