9 April, 1915

My dear Father:

I wish you could look in on us here for the evening. For the first time since we came to France, Huntly and I are billeted in the same town-railhead for the time being. The time will probably be short, for we are a long way back of the firing line, and we expect the Canadian division to be ordered to move forward soon. But while it lasts it is very pleasant. I told you about our fifteen mile march over here on Tuesday morning, through picturesque, well tilled country, and in the finest of weather. The hospital is established in a school, the transport men sleep in a house near the horses, the stretcher-bearer and tent squads, in three sections are distributed through the village. The officers have their quarters near the school, quarters usually far from elaborate. Three of us live, or at least sleep, in a bedroom bare of all furniture, 12' x 12'. But man’s real needs are few, he can dispense with feather beds and four-posters. We sleep comfortably in our Wolseley bags, rolled in our blankets spread on the floor. We have our mess in a room in an inn or “estaminet” a couple of hundred yards away. The one defect of the quarters is that there is no fire in any of them, and the evenings are chilly. So I was drawn to Huntly’s billet. He always manages to make himself cosy and snug. I am writing this, after my own dinner, in the living room of his billet, while he and his colleagues are away at their dinner, eaten at the fashionable hour of 7.30 p.m. You would have enjoyed the exhibition of French wen Huntly undertook to introduce me to his affable French host, and I tried to state what were Huntly's positions and mine. With a smattering of English on the old man's part, and a small French vocabulary on ours, we managed to make relations tolerably clear. Then I was introduced to madame, a comely stout woman of middle age, and the two daughters, built after their mother's pattern. The two sons, like many other sons in this country, are away in the army.

During this lull in the Canadian proceedings, several men, not ill enough to be kept out of action, are sent to hospital for slight repairs, like ships still more or less seaworthy taking the chance of going into drydock. This afternoon I was speaking to two of these, belonging to the mechanical transport, and it was gratifying to hear them speak so highly of Huntly. Evidently he gets work out of his 80 men, and is popular because he does not worry them, and does all he can for them. This morning I visited him at the railway station. He was disengaged, waiting for a supply train to arrive. He was seated like a lord in the dining car of the train occupied by some officers and men of the A. S. C. In another car, what would be called in Canada the caboose and in England the guard’s van, he had his office. It all looked very convenient and business like. And I hardly need add that he looked, as usual, the picture of health. No one but a strong man could have struggled and wrestled with the French tongue as he did a few minutes ago without doing himself serious bodily harm. I wonder whether Professor [Luchti?], if permitted to witness the struggle would have let his French politeness overcome him to the extent of clapping his hands and saying “Bien, bien”, or his regard for truth would have led him to wring the same hands and utter, “C’est execrable”.

As this village is comparatively small and cannot hold many troops, our brigade is pretty widely scattered. Yesterday afternoon I mounted my Bucephalus and rode over to see my senior colleague the brigadechaplain about Sunday services. He was out, possibly I may go again tomorrow. Meantime the plan is that he have service with each of the four battalions, and I take the smaller, attached units – ambulance, engineers and divisional train. My horse, like many others, is woolly and needs clipping. But clippers at the moment are hard to get. Beasties which need not be named hide themselves in the long hair, but happily I am told there is no danger of these leaving horses and making their home on humans. Hitherto I have had no use for Keating’s powder or disinfectant soap, although not all have been so fortunate.

Our food as a rule is excellent. Usually the rations served out to the men are more than they can eat. I suppose no troops at war were ever fed better than the British in this campaign. The rarest luxury is fresh vegetables. I never felt so much sympathy with and respect for vegetarians in my life. But a strict vegetarian would die here. For that matter, a strict Roman Catholic would fare no better, for fish is as hard to get as fowl, and both are quite impossible, The R.C. Church absolves soldiers on active service from fasting and abstinence, the theory being that a man rendering the greater service is excused the lesser.

I mentioned the other day that this part of the country was undulating, unlike the flat land we have lived in until this week. A hill not far from us commands a fine view. Last evening four of us strolled up to watch the flares and the flashes of guns in a big arc miles away, and this afternoon the men, taking a little march to the same place, thoroughly enjoyed the view. Each place where we are billeted has its own points of interest. The last town, a comparatively large one, allowed of gatherings impossible here. Every evening an impromptu concert was held in a hall commandeered as an entertainment room, much like the nightly concerts held on the Atlantic. On Monday evening I joined Canon Scott and McGreer there, did my little part along with them, and then we three adjourned to McGreer’s lodgings. The Canon, one of the most delightful of “raconteurs”, told me of adventures of his past and present. The other night, when the moon was full, and he was passing a solitary wayside shrine, the scene appealed to him so strongly that he wrote a poem about it. The poem, I believe, appears in the Montreal “Star”. It is just the kind of war poetry we need. One of the staff officers, whose sergeant is very artistic, suggested, to the Canon's delight, that this sergeant might make a sketch of the shrine to go with the poem. The difficulty was transportation. The officer recommended the canon to commandeer the first likely looking motor car he saw. He set out on his quest and soon, on the market square, found just the car he needed. He explained to the chaffeur that he was to be driven at once to such and such a road. The chaffeur politely demurred, “But this car is private property, sir”. “Oh that's all right, I know the owner won't mind. Whose car Is it?” “The Prince of Wales's, sir”.

Now Huntly has come back from dinner, a very good one, I am sure, for if “a jovial monk am I”, a “bon vivant” is he.

With warmest love to each one,
Ever your loving son,
A.M.G.