11/8/1916
Dear Folk.
I daresay by this time you will be aware that I am not coming home this week nor will I be next week from what we were told today. We leave for Papawai in the morning & we were told today that we would be firing a practise next Friday so that means we will not be back till Saturday & will not go on leave till the next week. However nothing is certain I looked all through the order papers today & the seventeenth mounted were only mentioned amongst the sick, I think they must have forgotten the rest of us. The measles have broken out in our lines again & we have six or seven cases in the hospital. As our squadron is considerably over strength there is a number to be draughted drafted to, Signal Machine Gun, and mounted details, but who these are to be we have no idea so far but should in the
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course of a few days otherwise we will not know until after leave. The best part of this staying so long before leave is that the time before sailing is comparatively short we are due to sail about the middle of September so you see if we get much more than ten days (if any) we will have little more than a week when we return. I had another week end to Wellington last week and found the weather ever so much ahead of what we had been having up here. Jess Mags & self took a run out to Island & Lyall Bay in the afternoon & it was very enjoyable the straits were as calm as a mill pond. The only thing there was too much fog to the south for us to get a glimpse of the S.I. I had sent my watch down during the week to have a glass & hand put on it but as it was not finished I got her to send it along during this week. It arrived yesterday
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along with a box of scones as you see I did not do so badly out of the trip. The worst of it is that the watch arrived with the hand still roaming about over the face but I have it in here and am to have it back tonight so hope it will be right this time. So far I have not had any word from Lottie from Timaru and I am wonder if she also thinks I am away on leave. A letter arrived from Auckland a day or two ago & they told me I was going this week end. a general misunderstanding I imagine. We got rid of the horses last Monday and have been having fine weather ever since, only hope it will last for over a week. They have not known what to give us this week have had quite an easy time. Nothing more at present hoping all are as well as I. Your Brother Charlie.
