Letters From the Front

Dated: May 25, 1917

Letters From the Front.

Corpl. W. R. Walsh,
No. 25825, No. 4 Company
8th Battalion, C.R.S.,
France

May 25th, 1917

Mr. Chris. Quinton:

Dear Friend,

I have not heard from you yet, but will drop you a few lines to let you know that I am still in the land of the living.  I am on night patrol duty now, just behind the front line trenches.  They have built a light railroad to haul ammunition up to the trenches and to the guns, we have to walk the track on the look out for breaks and blow outs. The Germans get wild some nights and put shells over anywhere, sometimes he hits the track, and then we have to report it to the working party, and they go out and fix it up again.  I tell you we have a hot time of it sometimes. 

I am on second shift tonight, so take this time to write to you, sitting in front of an old dugout in some old trenches, it is built of cement, the roof is about three and a half feet thick, the sides are not so thick, but are banked up with dirt--take some shell to go through it, I tell you--we sleep in there while off duty.

There is quite a noise around here just now, some of our guns are throwing a few over to Fritz, giving him something to think about.  I don't know what it would be like if they would all start in their guns all around us here, some pretty big ones, too, they used to make me jump when they went off, but have got used to them now.  I don't like to hear them coming from the other way, though, you never know where they are going to land.  I tell you Fritz has got some of the fields torn up around here, he will start shooting in the morning and keep it up all day in about the same spot and another time he will just put over two or three shells, and then stop for the day.

Well, Chris, this is quite a nice country around here, the rye is out in head now, potatoes are well up and the fruit trees are all in bloom and the grain is looking real good.  I would not care to live here, the land lies too low.  I do not know what it would be like in a wet year.  Alberta is good enough for me, and I would not mind if I were back there now, I think I would be happy.

I am writing a few lines to Sam to-night, I do not know where he is but will send it to the Army P.O., London, and he may get it all right.

"BOB"