.NDY.NjI5Nw

-6-

a regular summer day today. I hope it keeps up for a time. Well, it is time I went and looked up my pet French family, and had another sumptuous repast.

April 11, 1915.

Well we left our last happy home some days ago, and marched about 16 miles north, and are now located in the usual barn, with the usual evil smelling manure heap in the center, and particularly horrible looking pigs rooting in it. We are only about a mile from the Belgian frontier and are going to take up the most important trenches in the British line, as befits the best Division now at the Front. This last statement may seem rather tall, but we find that we have a whale of a reputation round here, in spite of our playful little ways in England. General Smith Dorrien, our Army Commander, inspected us today, and gave us a great speech, no hot air of the (Fine body of men) style, to which we have become accustomed, but a straight statement of his opinion of the war, and ourselves, etc.. We came away feeling very pleased with ourselves. We were all ready to attack at our last place, but, owing to those infernal Strikers, our guns had not the ammunition. I wonder how that wonderfully virtuous ? 2nd Contingent is getting on in England, and if they are waking up London all over again. Maybe if they had been cooped up in big (Dry) camps, for as long as we were, they would cut up some also. We are all broke now, as we only get a very small portion of our pay, which will be fine when we draw the balance, but is rather annoying now. I am glad people in Canada are getting up a tobacco fund, as we are usually pretty short. One of my section bought a German telescopic sight, from one of the regulars, for ten francs,

BC Archives, MS-1901 Box 1 File 10 / RUSSELL, Alma M., 1873-1964. Victoria; librarian. / Selected letters from Sergeant John Raymond McIllree, 1915.