Dear Mum, Dad, Sis and Commando Jack,
Well folks I am going to try it again and hope I do a better job than I did with the last one.… I am coming along fine on the road to recovery but it still tires me out to write. I am able to sit up for about an hour now but it doesn’t take me long to be licked for the day. I guess you folks…have forgotten all about me, haven’t had a letter from either of you for two weeks. Your last letters were about the middle of August. However, they must be chasing me all over France. Probably some day soon I will get a pile all at once. I still can’t write very much but I hope to get back on the old schedule soon.
I had a letter from Major Thompson today…he was my company commander. He was wounded the day before I was through the arm and I did it up for him and got a stretcher bearer for him. Now he is OC of A-Coy at 2 C.I.R.U. here in England and will be for some time. He said if I am on my way back to France I will have to go to 2 C.I.R.U. and I will never leave while he is there. He wants me for his clerk if I go back. I don’t know if I will be going back or not so don’t depend on it. When they put me on the boat I will believe I am going to Canada. It would be too big a disappointment to plan on going and then find out I wasn’t.
Still haven’t had the tube taken out of my lung, but I think that will happen soon. I have to take breathing exercises every day for my lung and they sure are tough enough. They certainly are swell to us in this hospital. We have special shows in the wards and it sure is a treat. There is also a radio and we get all the news and lots of swing music. The news sure is good, they certainly made fast time for awhile. It took me a little while to get them going but I finally succeeded. I guess they don’t need me over there any more. I was reading about the Essex Scots going into Dieppe. Guess it is an entirely different gang now, so many of the fellows have been knocked out.
One thing you can be happy about and thank the Germans for is that I am a nonsmoker now, haven’t had one smoke since I got hit. The MO’s wouldn’t let me have any smokes and for awhile it was pretty tough. They told me the cigs would make me cough and hurt my lung so it was not hard to convince me. Now I have gone this long I am going to stop for good or at least try. It doesn’t seem to bother me at all now. If any cigs arrive while I am here I will either give them out to the fellows in the ward or send them to some of the fellows in the Essex.
The weather over here is terrible now, nothing but rain. However, I am not in a tent and it does me good to laugh at it. Guess summer is over in this country.
The buzz-bombs have stopped coming over too and it is not with sorrow that we hear that. You know, Mum, I saw the first one of those that came over England but I can’t tell you all about it just yet. I have seen quite a few…and they certainly do go.
I am getting about as much milk here as I was at home, but it sure isn’t as good as I got back there.
Well, I guess this is about all for this time folks, but I will try to do better. Give my very best regards to all the people back there. Keep those letters coming please and I sure hope to see you all soon. All the best to the best folks a fellow ever had.
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