The letter is transcribed in full.
Dear Mother & Gret,
I have not received a letter from you for some little time, but as we had the advance of a Canadian Mail in today, probably tomorrow will bring a letter, the reason why I am writing is to tell you of the wonderful happenings which we are experiencing
at present.
As you have no doubt read in the papers, we are moving through the country evacuated by the enemy, and were it not for the vile weather, we would be having a very pleasant time, as it is I would not have missed this trip for quite a lot, as nothing can
describe the joy of the inhabitants on being delivered from the Germans, the most of them had not seen British troops for four years.
Of course, all the civilians we are meeting are either very old or very young, the active men and women having been sent back to the rear, probably to do war work and any kind of pressed work, some cases I heard of in which some Frenchmen had been hidden
by their women for nearly four years when the enemy first overran the country, with the hope that tone day the allied armies would return and free them.
Another queer thing was every house seemed to have had a French flag hidden away, which they immediately brought out as soon as our troops started to come through, in some towns they were so beflagged as to give one an impression of early war days in
England. I suppose you are wondering how the German is leaving the country, well as far as I have seen up to the present he is behaving quite decent, of course most of the bridges and crossroads had been blown up, mines and machinery in factories destroyed
while the railroads are also out of business, but with one exception the towns and villages are untouched, though a lot of the contents of the best houses have been looted.
In the one exception the town had almost every window smashed, I could almost imagine as I marched through, Germans picking up stones and throwing them at the windows as they passed by, some towns were unscathed, the people having little to complain of,
the main trouble being food of which very little has been available for some time. I would like to say something in praise of the American Relief people, for without the food which they caused to be sent to civilian prisoners in Northern France, they
surely might have starved, a strange thing but one of the first things which we noticed was that the children were wearing smocks made out of Canadian flour sacks, which on inquiry we found had been part of the supplies forwarded by the American Relief
Fund.
The weather has been very bad lately, it has rained steadily every day for three days, the roads are none too good, so it is a common sight to see lorries in the ditch, but the redeeming feature of the whole thing is the good billets we are having. Just
at present we are staying in a lovely house, the civilians in this part having all gone away as an odd shell lands now and again, so we are making ourselves very comfortable, have a great spring bed to sleep in, some of the boys have some beautiful rooms,
Louis XIV furniture, the room we shave and clean up in has rosewood furniture, three huge mirrors, one of them a Cheval, while the bed, it is one of the best I have ever seen, as you know the people over here specialize in beds in this country.
The Officers Quarters and the Orderly Room are swell places, everything having been left at a moment’s notice, they have all the cutlery and china at their disposal. The cook uses the kitchens. In fact, everybody is so comfortable that all of us will
be sorry to leave, the best time we have had in this war, for the fighting is not hard, mostly patrol work, while the shelling is very scattered an ineffective, in fact compared to what we are used to, practically nil.
I have not had any more news of Bart lately but I guess he is getting along alright, and I expect to hear from him any day. I have not received a letter from Ted for some time now, I guess he has very little to write about anyway. I know myself what
a humdrum day to day life his is or has been, one that has caused so many men to get married in Scotland.
Well I think this is all I have to say at present, will write again as soon as I hear from you, so with love to Gret,
I remain your loving son,
Harry
