Sept 30th 1915

My darling Wife -

Just a line to let you know that I am all right, I am writing this from the trenches & would have written sooner in answer to your last letter, only I have had little or no time, we have been having it pretty hot lately & the enemy have certainly kept us busy, but I suppose you will have seen all about it by this time in the papers, at any rate our lot is all right & so far as I can see this is the beginning of the end, if we can only follow up our successes the war should be over in a very short time, there is not the slightest doubt that victory is in sight, the Germans are more sick of it than we are if anything & they have been hollering over from their trenches that they are starving & for us to come over & take them, but of course we pay no heed to them, they are shelling us pretty heavy all along the line, but we are giving them ten times as much & they cant stand it, I would not be surprised that by the time this reaches you they will be suing for peace, there is going to be such a smash up as the world has never seen, & we are going to do the smashing. I got your letter dated Sept 5th all right with the photo, which is very good indeed, only it is a pity that it is a bit blurred, the children look splendid & it seems to me that they have grown quite a bit since I saw them last, I see Eileen still keeps good & plump, while George seems a bit taller than her which accounts for him not being so fat I suppose. they certainly both look healthy, I wish you had been in it too, dear, the next time you get them taken, you want to get in too.

One of the boys got a Vernon News with the account of Rendalls death in it, I suppose they had the news in Vernon before my letter reached you.

I have not received the parcel of socks and handkerchiefs yet, nor the shaving soap, but they should get here anytime now, you see, there have been so many troops being moved over here lately that everything has been upset & it takes a little time to get everything into working order again. I am glad to hear that you & the children have all you want, dear, plenty of clothes & all that & I am sure you keep the children looking nice all the time, I am sure I would only be too glad to see them & tell them how nice they look & if I was at home I would take them down town & give them some Ice cream, but I guess it is getting too cold for that now. It is a good idea to get the parcels tied up in the Hardware, they cant be tied too strongly, sometimes when I get them they are just hanging together, but the stuff is all right, I have seen parcels get here with nothing but the paper & string, everything else having dropped out, you see, they are handled so often & so roughly that if they are not tied very strongly they wont reach their destination & you can guess what a disappointment that is. It was too bad of Mohr to keep that stuff of Harlows, I think he was very mean & I hope to have the pleasure of telling him what I think of him very soon, such tricks as that are no good. I am sorry that I was not able to send anything worth while for the childrens birth day & I hope you were able to manage the dolls carriage & Express wagon for them, even if I could get those things here I would not be able to send them as there would be postage to pay & of course we are never near a P.O. to get stamps & if I sent them without stamps you would have to pay more for them than they would be worth, however, I guess I will be home before their next birthday & we will all have a good time together. I see that the Hardware gave Harlow a gold watch when he left, they thought quite a bit of him, if I had only behaved myself I suppose I would have been there yet, but there is not much use crying about it now, it was my own fault & the pity of it is that you & the children should have had to suffer for my misdeeds, however, dear, when this thing is all over, I will try & make amends to you, & by loving you more & more every day I will try & show you that there is still some of the man left in me, & if I get into any kind of a good job at all I can assure you that I intend to hold it, it wont be booze that will put me out of it. & now dear I must close as they are coming round for the mail, I will write you again as soon as we get out. Give George & Eileen a big love dear & kisses from their old dad, & remember me to all my friends, & with fondest love & lots of kisses to you my own dear sweetheart I remain as ever your loving Husband

Jack

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