France
July 14,1917

Dear Jess --

Well here I am again - about time eh? I received a letter from you this morning and of course was very glad to hear from the McLellans. I haven't seen Bill yet this morning so don't know how the mail man was to him. I got five, we are on two different posts. I suppose Bill told you we are up the line again. The school I was at broke up awhile ago & we were to go out for rest, but came up the line instead, some difference eh? I had a pretty good & easy too , the nights are a little hard as we have to stand to from about 9.30P.M. until 4.30 A.M. before morning the time begins to drag. Bill has a harder post than mine as he cant move around much, we are on kind of outposts, but when we are in, in the day time dugouts are pretty comfortable. They are 25 or30 ft. below the surface, so quite bomb proof & there are beds or funks in them, it is an old hun dugout & the stuff in them are things they pinched from the french people, but holy smoke Jess they are lousey, if we didn't take off our shirts every day & have a hunt, they would walk off our backs.

I don't think old fritz is very far from us as every night we can hear them talking & working over there & in the mornings we usually see a few crossing a track right in front of us, I haven't been able to get a shot at any of them yet though.

Day before yesterday there saw a couple interesting air fights a & our air men brought two down & then yesterday I thought one of our was na-poo, three fritz planes took after one of our & it looked tough for him but he dove & finally got away from them alright, its sure exciting to watch, & the air men certainly do some wonderful stunts.

Leave it to me Jess I am not taking any unnecessary risks or anything like , that. There are enough, without doing that.

I had a long letter from Stuie today also , & he gave me a lot of news among the boys, He is in the first class for conscription so he says & thinks he will be called up soon , he is teaching school just now.

I guess my people are back in Edmonton again, they asked me to address my next there. Do you ever see them around? My little sister will be quite a girl now, do you know her Dora? They didn't like it much in Buffalo.

If fritz gets much closer with his shells I will have to move, several pieces of shrapnel have come right around me, want a piece for a souvenir? I'll get some good one to bring back it I get the opportunity, some of the boys who have been over for quite awhile have some peaches.

Well Jess this is a rambling sort of letter, but will have to call it an excuse for an answer.

Harold