Letters From the Front

Dated: July 24, 1915

Please excuse the pencil, but ink will be a very scarce article until we go back to billets next time. A bottle is such a dangerous thing to pack in one's knapsack that as a rule we fill our fountain pens and keep them for addressing envelopes or writing important field messages.

Since I wrote you last we have been following the regular routine, so many days in the trenches and then so many in billets, but in between trench spells we have moved about and each time have occupied a new part of the line.

We have not as yet had to repel a German attack nor have we been directly mixed up in one of our own, though we were called on to support one made by the battalion on our left. This was distinctly our warmest proposition since I joined, for there was a three day bombardment by both sides, culminating in three hours of tremendous firing that was absolutely deafening and the explosion of an immense mine dug by our engineers under the German trench.

That sort of warfare is most trying, and it is hard to keep from being restless when it is possible the Boches are boring under your line and you may be sent sky high any moment.

Since then we have had quiet lines with only casual daily shell fire, but even in these, sniping both day and night is steady, and thoughtless exposure is paid for.

Just now we are in an ideal spot, reserve trenches scattered through the woods on a big Belgium estate. This is said to be the summer home of King Albert, and the Chateau must have been a fine one with a garden all around it, a big conservatory and an artificial stream, with waterfalls, running through it. Now the chateau and conservatory are a mass of ruins, for the Germans have shelled them again and again. The wood is quite thick with underbrush and huge trees, for in this country they seem to have practiced reforestation and conservation for a good many years. Through this run innumerable bridle paths and it is quite easy to get lost. There is little game to be seen now, but they say that the troops here last winter lived on pheasants.

We wonder when the great British offensive is going to begin, for unless we or the Germans start something soon on a large scale, the war may drag on for another year, while a winter campaign seems almost a certainty. This is not a very pleasant prospect to any of us.

The authorities have now begun to grant leave but it is on a very small scale. Five men and one officer per battalion are granted six days' leave each week. On that basis as a junior officer my turn won't come till November, I expect.

We were inspected a week ago by Sir John French and got a good look at that great soldier. While on our way to these trenches we marched past Sir Robert Borden. Canada is doing well in supplying men, but if they put two divisions in the field it will be a great drain to supply reinforcements.

Here's to a banner year for Western crops. I hear the latest reports are still good and that those frosts haven't done serious damage. The crops here are excellent and open the eyes of Manitoba and Saskatchewan men. Almost every foot of land behind the lines is under crop and the yields should run about 45 or 50 bushels of wheat to the acre and about 80 bushels to the acre for oats. Of course a lot of fertilizer is used and the farming is most intensive.

To-day the Germans opposite us hoisted a sign on their trench with the news that they have captured Warsaw with 100,000 prisoners. No hint of this has yet come to us, and we hope it is a Wolff agency report, for it means a serious blow to the Russians and the release of 1,000,000 Germans to operate on this front, if true.