No 10 Con. Camp
Boulonge
9.12.17
Dear May,
It is wet this afternoon so we have been sitting in the tent eating apples & chucking the skins & cores about until the old Sgt Major came along & suggested that we should get a pig in to keep the place clean. I have now taken to letter writing as a more harmless sort of pastime. I have got a few more p.c.’s & might enclose some with this. Equihen & Le Portel are seaside villages below Boulonge. I don’t think I told you that the Column of the Grand Army is over 183 feet in height. Haven’t had my trip to Boulonge yet but will be going in any day now.
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I don’t think I told you that I just missed Paris by a whisker. I was due to go at any time & within half an hour after I evacuated a runner came up from H.Q. to tell me to pack up & report for Paris leave. It was stiffness in a way but Paris will be there for a long time yet & it ain’t every day we get trench feet. I think I can get p.c’s of Paris here & if so will send them on in advance. There are some bon buildings there & I have seen some good books of p.c.’s so if I can I might as well post them from here as they won’t let us send them when we are up the line. Had a letter from Ernie the
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other day. He was up at Ypres but both he & his mate are now in Hosp. in London. Ernie seems to be pretty bad with trench feet & trench fever & I think he is in for a good spell in England although it is not a serious complaint. If he can get up to Porthill for a while he will be right. I have just had a letter from the Chap in our team who got the piece of shell in his ankle & he is off back to N.Z. He also got a piece in his side & the Dr. won’t take it out. He told me it had “blown the top off his kidney” & they are afraid to operate, anyway
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he is finished with the war, and that’s worth a bit. I haven’t heard from Mark but his condition is similar to my own. I am suffering just now with a big attack of this here convalescence & am just about ready for the line again, but I am a bit soft after doing nothing for so long. I stayed up the line till I was sent away & I intend to stay here till they tell me to go. Have just seen the London Illust. for Dec 8th. It has a few good pictures & the first two double-page drawings of the Passchendael push are pretty good. The picture in the middle of the book is real good excepting the
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man jumping the shell hole. If you want to realize how ridiculous it is get about 80 lbs on your back & stand in treacle up to your knees & see how far you can jump. Most of the drawings we see are hopelessly misleading, but these are fairly good. I hope you are still getting this paper as it has most of the best of the was pictures. You can take it out of my pay. By the way I suppose the pay is coming to hand alright as you have never mentioned anything to the contrary. This seems to be about tonight.
Love to All
Len
P.S. Wrote to Joan this week.
