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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I was up on the battlefield after the fight, burying our dead, and though the Germans knew very well what we were doing they kept shelling us all the time and it got so bad that we had to stop.
The Germans are very good fighters, when they are far away, but when you get up to them with a bayonet they stick up their hands and cry for "mercy". Sometimes they get it. Sometimes they don't.
We have a wee fellow in the Battalion who only stands about 5 feet high. He captured thirty Germans himself, and marched the whole lot back after drilling them in the village street like a lot of recruits.
We have come back from the firing line now and are having a rest in one of the few decent towns, I have seen since I came to France. I am actually sleeping on a real bed now.
Jim Cairns joined the battalion with a draft after we came out of the firing line.
Sorry to hear Alex is not wearing the kilt (not kilts) as the Germans have a perfect horror of anyone wearing the little short skirt, and they would rather fight three English Battalions than one Scottish. I hope Alex. has quite recovered from the operation. Give him my best wishes.
Well, Meg, I don't think I have anything else to say as there is nothing ever happens out here out of the common.
Are you not thinking of coming home to see us? Apres laguerre n'est-cepas?
Hope you are keeping in good health. Kindest regards to Alex and all the rest.
Your loving brother, Jim.
BC Archives, MS-1901 Box 1 File 12 / RUSSELL, Alma M., 1873-1964. Victoria; librarian. / Selected letter from Private James Paterson, 1915.