Alma Russell Letters
Letters of British Columbia men on active service with Canadian and British Expeditionary Forces, 1914-1918. Learn more.
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Last night 2 volunteers were wanted to carry water up for the platoon. We had to go a mile and half cross country to tanks. We got out of trench and went across open (Milne & myself volunteered). At one time we passed within 350 yards of german firing line and were just behind one support trench. It was a bright moonlit night, so bright that flares were hardly necessary and only an occasional one went up. Going across the open I’ve never seen such a field of battle – hardly a square foot but what there was a shell hole; old disused trenches, mine craters and everywhere a mass of shell holes. The ground was littered with hundreds of hand and rifle grenades which had failed to explode; thus indicating where the old firing line was at one time. Here and there we would see huge shells, duds, also unexploded. Besides these, broken periscope, fragments of rifles, old packs and dead bodies. We would see feet sticking out of an old parapet. On some parts of the battle field we would see a number of neat white crosses, but there has been such fierce fighting here that they were unable to bury all the bodies. Never have I seen such a battlefield, the barbed wire entanglements shattered by shell fire and rusted, still signified where the old firing line had been. I saw a huge serial torpedo with kind of iron wings on it. It lay in a shell hole and had failed to explode.
But I must close, the cry has gone up for letters. I haven’t written one quarter of my news, but I must write again and at length.
So far from forgetting David, I have been thinking often of him and my promise will be redeemed just as soon as I land in old England. Have been out here 11 months now and never had leave! and some chaps in fancy battalions who have never been near the firing line and only been out 6 months have been home twice. ‘To him that hath, the old words once more wring’
Time !.
BC Archives, MS-1901 Box 1 File 5 / RUSSELL, Alma M., 1873 - 1964. Victoria; librarian. / Letters and associated items from Private Jack A. Gunn, 1915 - 1916.