France
Sept. 22, 1917

Dear Folks:

Another Can. mail came in last night and as per usual I got my share encluding the box with the card I'm sending. The beans come in mighty handy as we're out of the line and both Chief & I are dead broke. Army grub is alright but a fellow gets mighty hungry at times. Have I written you since coming here? I guess not but there's not much to tell except that we're a few miles behind the line and not working very hard. I don't imagine we will be here very long for its too good to last very long.

I was looking for a registered letter last night but altho' I got four from home the register didn't show up. I never got the ten bucks Flora sent - I hope you have the receipt for it. Chief has a register on the way too so it dosen't matter. which comes first as we go 50-50 on whatever we have anyway. Tom Riley is in the gun crew now so Chief & I are the only ones of our old crowd left together.

We have jake billets -- in an old house and the country is great. The hamlet we're in is alike all the rest around here -- dead all over but we've got a Y as usual so can have ball games quite often etc. The fruit is in season too but of course we aren't allowed to pick them as they belong to the people. You probable remember my failing for pears & its some temptation to pass a bunch of pear trees loaded with them -- however we can buy them cheap enough at the canteen. -- and we manage to scrape a few francs together once in awhile.

I'll give you a line on how we eat -- just so you'll know we aren't starving. To begin with we get daily rations of 1/2 of 1/3 a loaf -- tin of jam between 7 which amounts to a big table spoonful each and sometimes cheese. Then for breakfast we get tea and a slice of bacon and quite often porrage -- for dinner we get one of man things -- either mulligan beans, machonika or bully beef -- and tea. Once in a blue moon we get steak. For supper we get tea only except for about once a week when we get rice. So you see we don't starve but at the same time I've never really had a square meal on the army yet & some extra money to buy jam, fruit, tomatoes, and stuff like that , that we can't get up the line, comes in handy.

I'm planning on seeing Chuck tomorrow and maybe Burnie & J.D. McNabb too. All Chuck's bunch are over here now but are not all together. They are all in Alberta Bn's but none of them are in Fred Fancher's unit. You will probably have heard from Chuck by now. Lawrence & Max Fife all coming over too I guess but have bomb-proofs in some construction Bn. I haven't heard direct yet tho'. I had a letter from Mac last night and he expects to land a commission alright. Its almost a year now since we first his England but I can hardly blame them -- Steck & Jaff are going with Mac. Peener may lose the sight of his eye but he isn't sure. Have you heard from him yet?

Well there isn't much more to write about. Is my allowance coming in OK? Send me a fiver now & again if it does but don't draw on you own. Give my bet & tell Rose I'll get busy & write her soon.

Love to everybody

Bill