Letters From the Front

Dated:

Letters from the Firing Line

Mrs. Robert Doran received a letter from her husband on Wednesday last dated March 20th from the front. Mr. Doran¹ is in the 20th Battery, C.E.F. joining at Calgary. He says they have been in a very hot hole since he wrote last. It has been just impossible to write even a note for it has been up and and it, night and day, for the past two weeks or more, and, in his own words he says:

When we got a chance to lie down and have a short sleep we were too tired to get the good of it, besides having no place to get dry, and one's blankets covered with mud; taking it all round, its the worst we have had yet, but last night I was sent out for a rest along with twelve others, so expect to get some sleep on the next seven days.

Have not seen Jimmy for three weeks but hope to see him now. You must have had a hard time keeping warm this winter, but it must be all right now, I feel like an outcast in this part of the world, with no one to talk to, and away from your own fireside, but dear, I pray that it will not be long before the war is over.

Strange as it may seem to you the terrible suffering men go through here, brings out, in many instances, the best that is in them. I am not sorry that I came, for if you knew the dirty tricks the Germans do to beat us, I am sure you would like to get a shot at them yourself. They are the meanest, low down set of men to fight against that you could imagine, although there is one bunch of them called Saxons from Saxony who are as good as can be expected. They are very friendly with us and they are deserting and coming over to our side as often as they get the chance, but a few days ago in the trenches on our left there were about 300 of them (bomb throwers), who made a rush at our trenches, but threw their bombs over our boys heads and then threw up their hands in token of surrender, but their own artillery saw what was happening and opened up on them and just mowed them down.

In another place our infantry captured a German machine gun position and they found the gunners chained to their guns to keep them from deserting, so there are many cases like this, and it looks like the beginning of the end, but I think we are going to have it hot in a short time, although it may be their last great effort, which cannot succeed, for we are stronger than ever, and more than a match for them, both in men and munitions, and in heart, which is the thing that will end the war and which the Germans have lost.

We have to boil our drinking water although it is better here than usual, or get the sanitary man to put chemicals in to purify it. We do not go for days without food but if we had to depend on what was issued to us we would often be very hungry.

We found a new device that the Germans use the other day, it consists of a shell filled with little poison cubes, looks like oxo cubes, which they fire over into our lines and when the shell bursts it poisons everyone within smelling distance of it. Then they have another form of savagery in what they call crying gas, it smells like sweet perfume, but in a few minutes you begin to shed tears and in a few more minutes you are blind as a bat. But I hope their rope is about at an end, then the long trip over land and sea home again, but I think it will take a long time settling matters and many things have to be added to the reckoning which is scored up against the baby killers so that such a war will never occur again.

We have just been served with leather boots up nearly to the knees and they are a great comfort, you can keep your feet dry anyway. My other clothes are in rags, but I manage to have a good lot of socks and am taking care of them as best I can for they are the one great thing out here.

I can't save very much money because we get six dollars a month, of 20 cents a day, which is the price of a loag of bread and two cups of coffee, for which it usually goes, although if we are near a farm house we buy eggs at 54 cents per dozen. Well goodbye and best love to baby and yourself.