Burges Belgium
March 30 1919
Dear Mother:-
Received two letters from you this evening, one March 8 and the other 13th..
Evidently you don't expect me home until September according to the clipping you enclosed. Well that clipping is out a mile. We will be home in May .
The 4th division will commence to leave England in May and I'll be home anytime inside a month from the time we start. I expect the artillery will be among the first to go as in our division it is senior to the Infantry. So I'll probably be home in May.
Yes I agree with you in regard to a short [?] this summer. It'll take a me a month or two to get used to "civvy" clothes and it'll be so darn good to be my own boss and know that I can do what I want to without getting into trouble. Oh gee.
I have got no money yet. It will turn up in the end but what is worrying me is that it won't be here before I get my leave. If I get my leave very soon I'll cable you. otherwise if you send some money by cable as I said in my last two letters I can draw it when I go on leave.
I am reading quite a bit now.
You asked me if I was near a town and what the country is like. We are like the following.- from Wavre 2km., from Brussels 24km., from Namus 35km., from Louvain 18 km from Perweg 18 km. So you see Wavre is the only town we ever go to in the evenings but I've had passes to all the other places. The country is very fertile and villages everywhere. We are in the Wallon country. That is the people speak Wallon which is a French-Flemish patois and not much like either. However the troops have manufactured a linguafranca by which we talk. Not far from here is a strip of Flemish country where they speak Flemish (or Dutch as it is called in Canada). The only French past of Belgium we have been in was at Mons. They spoke very good French.
I'm glad to hear that there are some "civvy" clothes of mine in Truro as I don't want to waste much time getting into them.
I think you had better not go to Halifax unless you know absolutely that I'm on the boat as according to what I hear we may not land at Halifax at all and then I may not be with the D.A.C. I may be with one of the batteries. But I don't know anything yet.
Well I will close now.
Loving
Ludlow