France
May 05, 1917

Dear People,

I have quite an accumulation of letters from you containing odd points that ask for comment so I warn you that the ensuing pages are likely to make scrappy reading. In addition to the batch I mentioned as having received in my last, I have to-day Father's and Mother's of April 10,11,12 in one envelope, with sundry clippings, and Marjorie's from Woodstock.

Don't think the mails can be quite so irregular as you imagine. Don't the published dates refer to mails from Canadian ports? Probably some come from New York.

It seems a bit odd to be reading your sympathetic questionings re the return of winter in the early part of April. The last week has been most summerlike, and to-day the heat is inclined to be oppressive. It is too early for it to last long. The moonlight nights are still delightful for our work. I was up Thursday and ha a very lively time most of the evening. Got our job done, however, in spite of it. Never saw men work harder or with more effect. We made record time. Personally I find shell fire far less trying on the nerves when on horseback in charge of a convoy than when crouching in a trench. The psychology of it is I suppose, that one's mind is so fully occupied with handling one's mount and keeping an eye out for developments that there is no room on the circuit for a realization of actual danger.

Last night I walked to D. Company's Mess and had dinner with them. Owing to various mutations, Meggitt and Wright are the only two of my old mess-mates at present with the company. Had a pleasant time. Heard Cecile and Esmerelda, and the Hawaiian Waltzes, etc.

It is pleasant to think of you getting on towards vacation. Father's, of course, will have begun, long ago; but Frances will be well on the home stretch. Is Marj. really going to try for a situation before summer? Or is she going to content herself to wait until Fall. If I were home my thoughts would be turning towards Cecebe. They do occasionally now, though for the most part they are too much occupied with mules and such things, to wander further than Toronto.

I am still carrying on with the transport, but can't tell how long it will last. It really needs two of us with our transport but we've been rather unlucky with officers lately, and if the companies get much shorter, it's bound to mean a shift for the A.T.O. However, we'll take it smiling if it comes and meantime enjoy our present job as much as circumstances will allow.

Frances's news of Moulton and the Roll Call, and dramatic activities were interesting of course, as such things always are, even if I sometimes forget to comment on them.

Well I'm not nearly through, but it's time for dinner and then away on my trusty Albert. I'll leave this open and add a line in the morning.
By the way I have a groom now as well as a servant - expensive, eh? but very swank and quite worth it.

Sunday Afternoon. Had a fairly quiet trip last night; though there were a few bits of excitement. At times the Bosch is a most methodical man. He picks out a certain spot on a road and drops a shell on it for luck at regular intervals of time. We ran across him in one of these moods. We could see ahead a nice black crump go up as regularly as clock-work about once a minute. It's easy then. You go up as close as you dare, wait for one to go off, and then make a dash for it, hell-for-leather, sparks flying from the pave, wheels rattling, din most glorious. It's really rather fun once in a while and not particularly dangerous, for when the Bosch is in methodical mood, he can usually be counted on.

Didn't get up of course till about ten this morning. Had breakfast, and a look around the lines, and a romp with some little French kiddies who came around our stores shed while Moss and I were there, and lunch. It seems strange to think of these kiddies here, some of them not old enough to remember life without the sound of guns. The same thing in a different form is charmingly depicted in the drawing I enclose.

Thank you for the clipping. Nicholl on Gilder is of great interest. Tom wearing does the Drummond understudy very well, doesn't he? The Wilsonian tributes were a welcome symposium. I haven't seen Wilson's speech in full, and even at this late date I should like to if you have a spare copy. We get our news largely from the continental edition of the Daily Mail, which owing to the paper shortage is inclined to be scrappy.

My friend Burgess has been suffering from a mild attack of trench fever, which leaves you just as ignorant as the doctors are. The symptom is temperature, and the cure rest away from the trenches.

Bayley is still my servant. No, there's no special need of socks among my men. Most of them get some from home. I can dispose of what I don't need myself, however, of those you send.

Best love to all,
Bun.

P.S. I nearly forgot to mention the Monthly. Rex ought to take up artistic note-writing as a side-line.