Letters From the Front

Dated: October 11, 1916

My dear Grandma

I was delighted to get your letter of Sept. 20^th yesterday. It reached me the morning after the night before, when I had marched 25 miles under weeping skies and soupy roads in “full marching order”. That phrase may not mean much to you but it includes, overcoat, underwear, shirt, shaving outfit, towels, writing materials, first aid packet, socks, housewife, water bottle, canteen tin, knife, fork, shovel, bayonet, rifle, two gas helmets, one steel helmet and sundry other incidentals besides 120 rounds of ammunition. How would you like to walk nearly to Pt. Stanley with all that hanging on your bones? Ye gods & little fishes! I was nearly “nah pooh” as the French say, when I got there.

Your letter brought the first tidings of Dave since we parted at the Base Camp. I had written him twice, but never heard from either him or Ron. I watched every column of soldiers among the thousands we passed to see their faces but in vain. I immediately sat down and wrote Dave, telling him I had hear the news, and from you, enclosing a post card addressed to myself for him to scratch a line on. I am also writing a Y.M.C.A. Captain in Boulogne to look him up if he’s still there & give him the glad hand & a good meal.

I notice the rebuke you give me about writing letters to mother. It is hardly deserved because only twice since I left Canada have I allowed more than on week to elapse between letters & even then not more than 2 weeks. The trouble is, my dear grandma, that even the best postal system in wartime is often dislocated and confused. I know positively that quite a number of letters written me never reached me. It is more than probable that some of mine never reached Canada and U.S. I never received a word from either father or mother for the first eight weeks (2 months) I was in France, and I know that it wasn’t because they didn’t write me.

Now about myself, I have had a chequered experience in the Army. I joined the 18^th Field Ambulance in Vancouver: was transferred to No. 1 Field Ambulance, Victoria, an Over Seas unit. Came to England to the C.A.M.C. Training School. Then when they assigned me to work in a Base Hospital in England, I transferred to the Infantry, 62^nd Battalion. While waiting for it to go to France I played in the Battalion Brass Band. Well instead of going to France as a unit, the 62^nd Battalion was broken up & went over as reinforcement drafts. The rest of it (I come in here) was absorbed by the 30^th Reserve Battalion. Then I was sent from it in England, to reinforce the famous 29^th in France. So you see I have gyrated from 18^th Field Ambulance through No 1 Field Ambulance: 62^nd: 30^th: 29^th & even then I was not through. During the months I was waiting in England I was invited to give Chalk Talks and Crayon Lectures to the soldiers all around the Canadian Camps. A Concert Party was organized, War office sanction was secured & I was urged to join it. I said I would, if I were allowed to do a turn in the trenches with my battalion first. So over I came & arrived last week 5 miles behind the firing line to find my battalion had left the trenches for some time. Also a telegram had arrived requiring me to be delivered to the Concert Party already on the road for three weeks. Well my conscience is clear. I did my best. So here I am doing the “Bengough” kind of drawings & lectures to crowds of soldiers, sometimes under shellfire & sometimes not. One of our chaps the other night was almost buried by playful German shell, but otherwise it behaved itself quite docilely and properly.

My address for some weeks now will be:

Pte. Norman Allan Imrie #524738

Canadian Military Concert Party,

c/o Senior Y.M.C.A. Officer,

Canadian Corps Headquarters,

B.E.F. France

I’d be glad to hear from you again. You write a very interesting letter. I am sending it on to Cyril & mother.

I realize with sincere sympathy how great must be the strain on mother, on you, Aunt Maggie, Annie and the others. God knows it’s “hard going” here sometimes but its easier than the interminable suspense that is yours who must remain to “keep the Home Fires burning.”

Much love to you, Uncle Jim & all his, Aunt Sarah, Naomi & all. Be sure I’ll let you know promptly about Dave, Ronald, & Roy whenever I can get into touch with them. Travelling along the line as I am, I’ll be likely to encounter them.

Norman