I'm sending this to meet you on your return from Kootenay. I left
England on September 1st and had a night at my point of disembarkation,
and then set off on a wandering adventure in search of my division. I'm
sure you'll understand that I cannot enter into any details--I can only
give you general and purely personal impressions. There were two other
officers with me, both from Montreal. We had to picnic on chocolate and
wine for twenty-four hours through our lack of forethought in not
supplying ourselves with food for the trip. I shaved the first morning
with water from the exhaust of a railroad engine, having first balanced
my mirror on the step. The engineer was fascinated with my safety razor.
There were Tommies from the trenches in another train, muddied to the
eyes--who showed themselves much more resourceful. They cooked
themselves quite admirable meals as they squatted on the rails, over
little fires on which they perched tomato cans. Sunday evening we saw
our first German prisoners--a young and degenerate-looking lot. Sunday
evening we got off at a station in the rain, and shouldered our own
luggage. Our luggage, by the way, consists of a sleeping bag, in which
much of our stuff is packed, and a kit sack--for an immediate change and
toilet articles one carries a haversack hung across the shoulder. Well,
as I say, we alighted and coaxed a military wagon to come to our rescue.
As we set off through a drizzling rain, trudging behind the cart, a
double rainbow shone, which I took for an omen. Presently we came to a
rest camp, where we told our sad story of empty tummies, and were put up
for the night. A Jock--all Highlanders are called Jock--looked after us.
Next morning we started out afresh in a motor lorry and finished at a
Y.M.C.A. tent, where we stayed two nights. On Wednesday we met the
General in Command of our Division, who posted me to the battery, which
is said to be the best in the best brigade in the best division--so you
may see I'm in luck. I found the battery just having come out of
action--we expect to go back again in a day or two. Major B. is the
O.C.--a fine man. The lieutenant who shares my tent won the Military
Cross at Ypres last Spring. I'm very happy--which will make you
happy--and longing for my first taste of real war.
How strangely far away I am from you--all the experiences so unshared
and different. Long before this reaches you I shall have been in action
several times. This time three years ago my streak of luck came to me
and I was prancing round New York. To-day I am much more genuinely happy
in mind, for I feel, as I never felt when I was only writing, that I am
doing something difficult which has no element of self in it. If I come
back, life will be a much less restless affair.
This letter! I can imagine it being delivered and the shout from whoever
takes it and the comments. I make the contrast in my mind--this little
lean-to spread of canvas about four feet high, the horse-lines, guns,
sentries going up and down--and then the dear home and the well-loved
faces.
Good-bye. Don't be at all nervous.
Yours lovingly,
Con.
X
September 12th, Tuesday.