#91239 Oct 26 - 15
29th Battery C.F.A
8th Howitzer Brigade
Otterpool Camp
Kent
England

Dear Aunt Sahra

You have no idea how pleased I was to receive your kind letter. we are always anxious to get mail & especially from America & Canada we do not always get a chance to reply as we are training very hard. But I was on guard last night & have a few minutes to spare before going on again.

The weather has been wet & cold lately & w e shall be glad when they move us out of trench as I think they may do before long. There are a great many interesting places in England & I wish we could get around a bit more. But since a Zeppelin raided our camp & killed 16 of our men & quite a few horses we are not allowed any lights & must not leave camp. It is nearly five months since I have joined the army as the Brigade I am in has been training nearly a year. You can see we are or should be in splendid condition & I hope we shall soon be leaving for the front. We see some very pitiable sights here probably you know we are quite close to Folkestone a large town which is nearly full of Belgium Refugees. They are mostly of the better class & tell some terrible stories about their suffering.

We see all the British wounded come back from the front the other day I counted 16 train loads of them in my 2 hours on guard close to the railway lines.

They are given the best of treatment & rushed to London as quickly as possible. They are wonderfully cheery & confident it is hard to see so many of them splendid fellows & broken for life we are very fortunate in having good officers in our Bdge most of them where brought back from France purposely to take charge & are all very good officers indeed. Our Col was recently decorated by the King most of our Non commissioned officers have also been to the front & are very good men. The people in England take the war very serious but conditions seem to be quite normal nevertheless.

I was up to London a few weeks ago for 4 or 5 days when the Zeppelins where there & we had a very interesting time of it.

I am afraid it is just about my turn to go on duty again so must soon close. Father seems to be getting on fairly well since I left Violet & Willie are a great help to him now.
We shall all be very glad when the whole affair is settled but I would not care to back until I have done something to avenge our poor comrades.

If all goes well & I get back Auntie I should like nothing better then to come & pay you a visit which I hope shall not be long. Hoping you will Remember me to all I am

Your Loving Nephew
Arthur.