Dear Jessie May 23rd.
Sadies Birthday eh! well I didn't forgot it for I sent her a card from Sunny France. Sunny France is right today but the night before last we were up on a working party & it sure rained. Also all day yesterday the low hung clouds did drop. There garnered fullness down Last night again we were on working party & Gee the mud was fierce. I was nearly all in & of course the old feeling of after all where is the sense of this cursed war came back. However we finally did get back here to the supports & I crawled into my dugout & have slept nearly all day & feel much better for the party some party; dance I guess. tonight for which I have just been invited. One thing; though the least bit of rain makes things slippery & gooy. it takes very little sun to dry it up again & tonight it is fairly good again.
Ive been getting all the back mail, recent mail & everything else this last few days but as you get it the same as I do I guess you know the way it piles in. A certain party whom I thought had forgotten to write altogether had three letters in the bunch so you see how they come to us here.
The surprising thing is that we get them all which I believe we do as a rule.
I am lying in my little dugout or rather funk hole we call them Just a little shelter from rain or shrapnel. Mine is just like a dog kennel only it leaks when it rains. Gee my arm is getting sore so I had to lie right down.
A fritzie shell just passed over & exploded a little piece up the road but his heavy artillery does very little damage now except to towns for our aeroplanes keep his pretty much at home these days. It is very interesting to watch them battling for the air. Last night we could see over 30 airoplanes in the air at one time. They got two or three of the Fritzies over this way & kept him inside a circle of ours while our aircraft guns hammered away at him. They are a pretty hard thing to hit though & i don't know if they got any or not!
I got your letter of the 21st & Ida's of the 22nd just a few minutes ago & both contained very interesting news. In fact they had more of the actual progress of things common than any Ive had for some time. Also a bit of gossip.
It would be nice to have Frank & Jim home again for a visit eh! It makes me homesick to think of it. but never mind when the time does come for me to come home again it will be some homecoming eh! Jess. My word it seems to good to be true. but there I must not think of such things now for it seems such a long way off that it seems almost impossible. Still We all hope to see it through pretty soon & we would do to if we had those at the head of things in our shoes for about one month. I think both would soon forget that fight to a finish stuff that they talk about.
You Suppose Im still in Bramshott well now Im not & was not when you wrote the letter either. I got into France Apr 17th. You say Jim is pretty happy eh! well he writes that way too & writes every week regularly as clock work.
You and Ida were out for a long walk last Sunday eh! Gee how I wish Id been along. So Percy is over here now too. Do you know where he is at & what reserve in England.
Say Mat certainly pulled some lark on the Girls of Triumph eh though from what I hear I guess there are none very badly hurt. Still he was no so bad if he was very very very quiet.
I guess Percy was like most soldiers had a girl at every corner by what Frank says. Yours truly is an exception in that line. Also I am very much a teetotaller for I'm one of the very few who do not take the rum issue. Even Bobby Leitch says it is necessary. Of course he was here in the real cold weather & was in that Big Vimy fight when the Canadians put the Vim in Vimmy. It must have been fierce for I have been all over the place since & it is sure some well fitted place for a defensive.
Well so long Jess for now remember me to all my old friends & love to those at home.
Pte G R MacKay Your Loving Brother Rae
