Dec 8.1914
10916 4th Batt Ct. Etc.

Dear Mother;

Thanks awfully for your dandy letter which I received today. You seem to have been having a pretty busy time lately. You say that the cash was getting low when the pay arrived. If you are short at any time I will try to assign more of my cash home so let me know next letter. I was in headquarters fatigue today & had a regular mixture of jobs to do. First I was a cooks assistant, lighting fires, splitting wood fetching water etc. then I went with a wagon a few miles & did some moving shovelling stone & finished up by bagging tents on trees fro a shelter. We have order to move our camp tomorrow (It being a lovely holiday & the weather man having ordered up rain) we are only moving half a mile off & shall still be under canvas. It rained [?] times today but the sun shone for at least one hour. My cold which is still bad has rendered me dumb parallised & deaf (maybe), but foolin around I sure am a dummy for I can't speak above a whisper and have gon pretty deaf which is awkward on parade & drill for I've not bend an order for the last 2 or 3 days. Its [?] after that [?] our old Doc: [?] meddle with my ears so I will apply for more sick leave & pay Doc Lees & the [?] in Bristol a few days visit I guess sour old [?] will let me off and this time I'll not come back untile I have to as there is not much training possible now.- Mud Everywhere - Care of some soot is almost necessary to prevent absolute destruction in our kit bag.

You asked what I wanted for a Christmas present. Thank you very much for asking. I couldn't think of anything, we have OK but good & warm but heavy to carry in a pack and [?] list of unnecessary [?] must be eliminated.

Tell you what I would like if you can get a [?] edition of [???????] They would be a real [?]. If you can't get him, Pauline [?] would sound good [?] as an artiste for the sound & [?] or that [?] who wrote the [name of a book unclear [????] That's life only a bit of overall looks for a criticism & a cloth
[rest of letter missing]