Ewshott Barracks
Fleet. Hants.
England
15th Sept. 1918
Dear Mary
We are back in barracks again after a short camp out at Dogmersfield Park owned by Sir Gerald Mildway who is holding something like 700 acres of land at present but owns about 16,000 acres altogether, the bulk of which is in the hands of the tennants it is now pretty & has a lot of fine timber on it, Oaks, Elms, Beech, Ash, Larch, Spruce, Firs, Chestnuts etc. I believe, that the Gov’t has bought all the timber on the place for £40,000. There is a fair amout of Game to be seen about these parts wherever there is any thick bush, Phesants, Partidges, a few Rabbits, and Ducks, and I have seen several Squirrels, the first one that I saw I thought was a Stoat they are so quick in darting about among the branches of the trees. I haven’t yet received the Cake which you sent me but it may come to hand yet
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there has been a lot of parcels going astray from here for several months past, and only this last week the driver of the Mail Car was arrested for stealing Soldiers Parcels, he had been suspected for some time it seems and so they watched him closely and found a number of parcels in his house, it appears that there has been laxity on the part of the Postal Dep’t as no check has been taken of the Parcels as they are delivered to the mail man from the train, there is a big list of names of those who have parcels gone astray, posted up but, I don’t see my name amongst them. You will have heard by this time about about the epidemic of Influenza breaking out on board the transport “Tahiti” causing 67 deaths. I suppose this is the first catastrophy that has overtaken a N.Z. Transport a lot of these men will probably be second Division men. It is rumoured here that the trouble is complication of Influenza and “Cerebro Spinal Meningitis” anyway, it is evident that the Medical authorities on board weren’t able to cope with the outbreak. Your affect Bro
Jack.
