-3-

Another letter from Sergeant Mc Illree dated March 6th.

At last I have a chance to write a letter, so I will try to tell you all about it, or as much as the Censor will let by. Well we stayed in the billet, from where I wrote the last letter, for about a week, and were inspected by General French and the Prince of Wales. Then we marched for six hours into Belgium, to another billet, where we were very close to the firing line. Then we worked on various jobs, more or less dangerous, and finally went into the trenches with some of the Regulars, for twenty four hours. The part I was in was only seventy five yards from the Germs, but further down it widened to about two hundred yards. The trenches were quite marvelous affairs, clean and fairly dry, but the weather was cold. There we learnt the art of keeping our heads down, because the Snipers never let up, and keep pounding away at the top of the parapet, throwing mud all over you. Well nothing happened till about noon, when one of our aeroplanes appeared, and wandered round behind the German lines, with them shelling it. Then it sailed languidly over their trench, and stayed there, for some time, with every one blazing away at it. Talk about a row, we figured that 40, 000 rounds were fired at it, not counting a shrapnel. Then it spiralled up into the clouds, and disappeared, and a smaller one took its place, and went away when it got bored. I never saw any-thing like it. (Good Lord, but it is hard to write a letter, when it is going to be censored, also I have to carry on a conversation with about six idiots.) Well to continue. Later on in the afternoon a bombardment started. They put sixty shells into us, and we slammed them around considerably. Being so close they did not dare shell my section, but they knocked the other end about, and buried one man under

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