09.05.1918

Dear Mum,

I have received your letters. How is everything, dad, sis, you?  You don’t have to worry about me, hell I am back racks, barely see action. Well, I was anyway.

Vic, my officer was shot today on operation Canal Du Nord. I would have sent a sketch of the plans, but the general warned me not too. He never told me why, but I already know. Are movements should be kept to ourselves. He promoted me from lieutenant to officer for operation Canal Du Nord to be a success. That’s 1.50 cents! I always knew I would have made it, but now it seems that I was promoted for another’s misfortune.

I don’t get to write much anymore, since sergeant Miller lost his men somewhere in the front lines. My squad is next up to line. I don’t want to see my fallen brethren and leave him in the no man’s land, it just tears me inside. The odour of rotten bodies. The pests, like rats, are everywhere. Eating the eyes and livers of the death to be found everywhere. All these rats are the size a cat!

This will be my letter, since I am at the front lines, writing a letter back home isn’t going to be available for a while mum. Even though my squad is position at the front lines to protect the trenches, Corporal Dunn is moving in to capture Crambrai, hope we do. Those Germans better not use chlorine gas; I can smell it from here, smells like lime, I shouldn’t inhale this.