Somewhere in France
Aug 17/16

Dear Dear People,

Here I am close to the front and within easy sound of the big guns and reach of gas. Aeroplanes & Balloons up all the time. And a peculiar smell like a drug store in the air all the time.

Just at present we are so new at this place & so recently across from quiet old England that my ideas are not very clear. So that for any descriptions of the place you will have to wait. Among the most noticeable things are the farmers carrying on all their work all the way practically up to the trenches and the old old way of cutting their grains fancy with a sickle and a hook to catch it as it falls not even a cradle.

At night the star shells can be seen for ten miles or more and they say one can see to read quite well by their light about a mile away. We expect to be in the firing line in a very short time and we are so busy getting settled then moving that we have almost no time to write but will surely let you hear about every other day except when we are in the trenches.
I arranged with Miss Dulcie Read of London to wire you that we were in France & hope you received it all right. There is a censorship here of course and altho we officers are not actually censored we are on our honour and adhere to it strictly.

Please keep on writing I have had no letter since leaving Eng and will expect non for another week. I am going to try a cable to-morrow.

Yours with love

Gordon