Ecault
21.12.17
Dear May,
Xmas is just about here & we are wondering what sort of a time we are going to have. The weather is decidedly Xmasy, 4 ins of snow on Sunday & freezing ever since, but I doubt if the log fire & creaking board part of the stunt will be so successful. Our cooks are nothing flash, to say they are the worst I have known is praising them. However I expect we will have the day off & I have two big parcels coming from Stoke on Trent that should be here in plenty of time even if my N.Z. ones are a bit late, so I don’t expect to go hungry. Will tell you how we get on later. Dorris said she had sent you her photo & hoped it would arrive for Xmas but I think she was a bit late with it.
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I half expect to get leave again when I get back to the Coy. as there are so few left. They put the remnant over near Polygon wood & I believe they got cut up again. The few correspondents I had in the Coy have stopped writing & I don’t know how things are. I don’t know what N.Z. will think of the casualty lists. The day I was in Boulogne I spent two hours looking through our lists & then had to come away without finishing. I see old Jimmy Allen is always talking about keeping up reifts so that the boys out here will have an easier time, but that is all absolute rot. The quicker we are reinforced the quicker we are ready for another push. If N.Z. never sent another man we would have a much easier time. I can see old Jimmy going sky high when the troops get home. As long as we were in camp in N.Z. & had the people behind us we could get what we liked but here it is different.
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Perhaps you noticed where Parr the M.P. gave one of our high & mighties a rough spin in the House. Every word he said was true & it is to be hoped that the same high & mighty is promptly dumped forthwith. They used to say in Egypt that there were only two devils on Gallipoli, & he was both of them. I think told you about the day he came round the trenches & made everyone he past, go back & salute him, yours truly not excepted. When we were cut to pieces & held up at Passchendaele he issued an order that made our old Brigadier weep. The colonels conferred and – well the order was never carried out otherwise a few more of us would have had our names on the roll of honour. I don’t know much about Parr but a Merry Xmas to him anyhow & more power to his tongue. I saw that photo of our bombarded Y.M.C.A in the an Auckland paper,
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of Aug 23 I think. I am standing at the back but you can’t recognize any of the faces. I don’t know if I told you that the hut was built by the people of the Milton district. I am not surprised to hear that Gore has had another flood scare, they are becoming unpleasantly frequent & I sometimes wonder if there isn’t a nice dry town further North. I don’t think there is any more news. Have heard nothing of any of the W’side boys for weeks. I am afraid I’ve struck a rather plaintive note this time, especially for a Xmas letter but as usual I have just given you things as they are with no attempt to smooth over anything. Well Hooray just now & I hope you are all having a good time.
Love to All
Len
[Written on the back of the envelope]
These are the letters we got last mail – I hope he is still at the Convalesent Camp. They have a poor opinion of Godly over there – I suppose you remember that it was he Parr referred to.
Mother
