OUR BOYS.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 21 December 1916, Page 3

OUR BOYS.

LETTERS FROM THE FRONT. The following extracts from a letter received last week from Sergt. C. F. Scott to his mother, dated 10th October, from somewhere in France, will be of interest ta his friends :— I was very glad to receive your two letters, dated 6th and 13th August, and to hear that you were all well. I. am having a good time, and keeping well— never felt better in my life ? Is there any alteration in the weather yet ? You say there is plenty of mud and water about; I don't think you could beat us. If you had seen me a few days ago, I doubt if you would have known me. I had not had a wash or shave for over a week. We had just come out of the trenches, mud from head to foot, and wearing an old tin hat—they are really only shrapnel helmets. We must have been lovely looking object's, but in spite of it all, as happy as a lot of school children making mud pies. I haven't got all the mud off yet. We are getting plenty to eat, only plum pudding and such like are missing, and I wouldn't mind a good feed of one ot your plain suit puddings and golden syrup. The whole of the N.Z. division are back from the lines, resting, and some of us are billeted in a small town. We arrived here Sunday morning, but it rained most of the day. Yesterday was a fine day, and we went for a short route march in the morning, and had a few rifle exercises in the afternoon. Today we did much the same. The bayonet drill here is totally different to what we did in N,Z. We have very fair quarters here ; about 25 of us in the loft •of an qld barn. We sleep on a bed of straw, and I can tell you it is fine after sleeping on the ground with only an oil-sheat underneath you for so long-^it beats all the mattresses going, I have seen some of the old boys here, Claude, Ray, HectorMcKenzie (who went with the Main Body), Hill (Singer's agent), Taylor (from the Railway), and a good many others, who are all looking well, especially Claude. I haven't got a transfer yet, so I am still in the Canterbury Battalion Pleasa remember ma to all friends.