Sept 17 1916

Dear Hazel -

This is Sunday afternoon and rather cool out so I guess I will stay inside and write for a while. I guess you will think that letters are coming rather fast but there seems to be lots to write about and I have quite a bit of time to myself so here goes for another.

There was a letter here waiting for me when I got back from Scotland - I enjoyed reading it very much in fact I have read it over several times. I got quite a few letters from Can in the last mail seven quite a surprise as I did not expect so many - one from Jessie Bell Mary McFarlane, Lea Zavitz and three from home and best of all one from you so you see I get lots of news.

So Ralph came to call on you did he - wait till I get back and I'll fix him of course I won't be hard on him as I suppose it would be very hard to resist the temptation - I might do the same thing myself if I lived as close as he does. You certainly must have had a good time in Detroit when you are thinking of going back again for Thanksgiving - I have no idea when it comes over here or whether they have one or not. Lee has been writing a letter to Mary for the last few days and hasn't finished it yet. He must have an awful lot to tell her confessing his sins etc. I don't do that as of course I have none to confess -------

We are back here drilling hard again. We have English Instructors and they are rather strict. I don't know when we will start Signalling again but am thinking seriously of transferring to the Divisional Signallers. Mr Ashley had all our certificates in his trunk and he lost it coming over so likely we will have to try our exams all over again - a very pleasant thing to look forward to. We did not stay in London very long as we didn't like it at all. We saw a few places then beat it back to camp and were rather glad to get back. I expect to be as strong as Hercules in a few weeks either that or there won't be anything left of me - probably the latter.

It is 3PM here now - I suppose you will be just leaving your cosy bed - another way of saying "getting up" - It seems funny the difference in time. I see by today's paper that the Germans are getting it now but wait till we land there and Mr Bill will be in a real hurry to get back to Berlin. The people here think that the war will last another year anyway and it looks like it at present. A guy has started to play the piano so please excuse any mistakes from now on. We haven't seen Jack Stevens yet but met a fellow from his Battn in London who knew him. He said he thought he must be in France as most of the battn was there. I know a lot of boys in France but may never see any of them until we get back home.

Well Hazel I have written a letter for every mail so far (2 a week) and sometimes more so that is pretty good isn't it? Well - I guess I will stop or the YMCA will think I am beating them out of some paper

With loads of Love
Jack.