France
Feb 8/17

Dear Cath:
Yours of Jan 14th to hand - so glad to hear from you again. I'm still on the job & except for a slight cold, am enjoying the best of health.

I've been getting some rather startling news from home lately. First of all I hear that Binks & Marie Steer are engaged, then along comes a letter from Ine in informing me that Mark Shaw has actually been skating at the rink.

Mercy Kamerad !!!

You have likely heard by this time of our meeting Harry Bawden. Yes, we ran across him at last. His batt. was coming down from the front as ours was going in about 3 weeks ago & we happened to stop down right in the same town. Of course Pete started out to look for us as soon as he heard of our arrival & at the same time Lawrence & I started out to see if we could find him. Result was that when we returned to our billet after an unsuccessful promenade we were told that a young officer had been looking for us half an hour or so earlier. Well we knew he would be back again so we first waited for him. Sure enough he came round not long after & we had a fine old chat. Harry had just been in hospital for a week with a touch of the grippe. However, he certainly is looking fine.

You certainly are having winter weather there all right. We are having it pretty cold here too, but not as cold as that. There is an inch or two of snow on the ground but not enough to bother us any. It is great to get away from that everlasting mud - it's all frozen up now.

I've been trying to have a decent picture taken during the last month. The 1st attempt turned out so punk that I didn't ship any of them but these two although nothing extra are not quite so bad & I am sending them along. Am going to "pose" again before long if I get the chance.

Well here's the corpl. to give me a job so I'll have to quit. Remember me to all.

Sincerely,
Les.