Letters From the Front

Dated:

LETTER FROM THE TRENCHES

Mr. J. Easton has received the following letter from Clifford Carter, who is now somewhere in Belgium:- 

Belgium, January 14th, 1916

Dear Friend, 

At last I have found courage and time to write you.  It is just 4 months to-day since we landed in Belgium, and we have been doing trench duty all the time.  We expect to go back to a rest camp within the next two months.  At last leave has started, but only a few at a time.  For instance, in the Grenade Section, we have one man going on leave every Monday morning.  There are 45 men in the Sec., so you see it will take about a year for us all to have leave.  However, we expect that once we get a rest, there will be more going at a time.

I suppose you will ask what I think of the war and active service.  Well, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't give a care if it finished to-day.  For there is nothing beautiful in dodging bullets and whizz-bangs, and living in the mud. 

The rain fall out here is fierce. It's raining every day, and the mud is terrific.  Our lines are in pretty good shape, but they were fierce when we took them over.  It has meant a terrible amount of work and material to fix them up.  And a few lines, for there are quite a few of the old boys gone.

However, duty first.  Our lines are from 75 to 250 yards from the Germans' 1st line.  Just a nice range for our grenade guns, and believe me, we do some nice work once in a while.

At present we are in billets a couple of miles behind the line, for a few days.  We were out for a route march to-day, and thentactical excercise, just to show the Brigadier how we would make a charge.  Well, I must close, hoping this will reach you all in the best of health.  Please give my best wishes to all my old friends.  Good bye for now.

Yours sincerely,
CLIFFORD CARTER.
Grenadier.