FRANCE
28.2.17
Dear May,
I think it is about time I wrote again. Have been waiting day after day for a N.Z. mail to come in but it is a good bit overdue now & as I have a bit of spare time I thought I’d make the most of it. At present we are out of the trenches for a few days & are having a fairly quiet time but don’t suppose it’ll last long. There is nothing in the way of news. Everything
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is deadly quiet & tame. The coldest part of the Winter is over now & we are back into the mud. March is said to be the wet month & after that the Spring is liable to start at any time. The swallows have not retd yet but shouldn’t be long now as they were here when we arrived last year. We have stood the winter better than I expected & although we have been on trench work all the time with only the usual few days relief, I have never had anything worse than a good cold that lasted about a fortnight & is pretty right now. I haven’t even been able to raise a chilblain although at times I felt as if my feet,
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hands, & ears were frost bitten for sure. I suppose we’ll get some cold snaps yet but the worst of it is over. I heard that M. Maher was wounded a while back but am not sure, you will know more about it perhaps than I do. I have seen Dick Hume. He & Billy & Mark Collins are doing alright. Mark & I have been working
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together on the same shift for a long time but last time we were in he was put on another job & another cobber of mine got his place & one night we were looking over the parapet & a stray rifle bullet got him through the head & he died in a few minutes. I was only about two feet from him & I can tell you I felt pretty nervey for a while. That is what sickens a man of the job.
Love to all
Len
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Excuse paper – I have plenty but dropped in here to the Y.M. & find that they have run short tonight.
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Have you any idea what Fred Hamer’s address is?
