Letter from Pte. Pettifer

The following letter was received by Mr. W. Magladery:

Sandling, July 18th, 1915

Dear Friend:
I now take the pleasure of answering your letter which I received some time ago. I should have written you sooner, but I have been very busy for the past two weeks. This is Sunday evening and I have just come off duty. I am on the transport, and we have got 20 more horses today, and four of us have had to picquet them. We have 68 horses here now.
The weather has been wet lately. We have a very nice camp. We are 4 miles from town, and the railway station is 400 yards from my tent.
This is a very nice country, but I would rather have Canada. I would not live here "on a bet." There are lots of airships here. A fleet of 10 passed over camp the other day. I have not seen any of the boys who came over here with the 3rd C.E.F., and they left for the front on the 15th, so they did not have to wait long here. All the boys from my company there wish to be remembered to you. We do not know how long it will be before we are sent to the front, but we do not expect it will be long. The King and Lord Kitchener will inspect us Thursday.
I wish you would send me Liskeard papers, so we could get some of the news from that part, as we get very little of it here. Please give me Tom's address, and I shall write to him. We are only 40 miles from the firing line and can lie in our bunks at night and hear the big guns. We can see the coast of France quite plainly. Troops can be sent from here to the firing line and return wounded in 24 hours.
Give the people I know my best wishes, and ask some of them to write.
Pte. R.C. Pettifer,
20 Batt. Transport,
2 C.E.F. 4th Brigade,
Army P.O. London, Eng.