Tag Archives: Hun

11 May 1917

 

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11. 5. 1917.

My dear Mother,

Thanks for your last & for others from C & O. I don’t know what has happened as I have written pretty frequent lately. I think 2 letters have gone to G. so you may not have seen them. Anyhow we are not hun hunting or anywhere near them, except a few prisoners which are knocking about. They seem to look after themselves & have very little escort. Someone saw a party get into a lorry & when they were in their escort, a single & ancient warrior handed them up his rifle & bayonet & then they pulled him in, so you see that they are all quite friendly. We did a longish march yesterday & have had a day’s rest to-day & more

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again to-morrow but we are nowhere near the line & no one seems to know yet when & where we are going back. Anyhow we are quite out of the hearing of war noises such as guns or aeroplanes The G. O. C. was round this morning & had us on parade & made a speech & then shook us all by the hand, so it looks as if he is going, but he didn’t say anything. However there seems to be a rumour that he is off on some other job & we wonder what we are going

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to get in his place.

We are fairly comfortable in a straggling village, but the weather is so beautiful, that we are out in the fields most of the day. We have a tame canal where the Battalion disported itself this afternoon quite unashamedly in spite of the numerous ladies along the tow paths & in various barges They didn’t seem to mind. the barges are enormous things towed indiscriminately by a tug-pair of horses or the barges family – the latter down to the smallest infant each toting its own rope & the whole moving about 1/8th mile per hour in

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favourable circumstances. The canal water is inclined to be classified as “polluted” but I had quite a decent bathe in it, in spite of the scum on the surface. We are living with the most sanctimonious family I have ever come across. They have a picture with a light before it in their [illegible] dining room, a wall covered with the portraits of fat & unctuous priests & even the table cloth is embroidered with pictures of the apostles in various poses. They must be

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dreadful people to live with but we don’t see anything of them.

I see Olive says I must be having a dreadful time. We haven’t been within range for 3 weeks & there seem to be no immediate signs of their sending us back. Altogether I am enjoying myself very much. I hope you have good weather & enjoy yourself in Cornwall.

Love to all

Jack.

 

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