Bloemfontein, S. A.

April 8th, 1900

Dear old Mother

I received your very welcome letter yesterday of the 5th of march and was glad to that all are well at home you kneed not be anxious about me at present as we have our tents here and are very comfortable we have had a couple of pretty smart marches out to the east of here but had no fighting we cannot tell how long this war is going to last we will not be home anyway for three or four months you see we are brigaded and that means a lot as they dont make up a brigade every day I think we will have to see the thing through we are not Lord Roberts body guard we are a fighting brigade although we are supposed to be always in reserve but so far we have always been up in the firing line and in a few scraps the advance is the highland Brigade and our brigade makes the 9th division and you bet where there is any fighting you will always find the highlanders and where you find them you find the Canucks it is not pleasant work fighting you read that the more you do of it the better you like it but every soldier I have ever seen it has been the reverse we certainly have had a pretty hard time of it in some ways marches and bad weather sleeping in the open for two months in all kinds of weather and fighting some of the time I hear that a mail boat went down in a collision with a lot of mail so I guess some letters I sent home have gone down so you will not get one for a while I write pretty often but on the march from Graspo to Pardeberg where we had the fight with old Cronge I had no chance to write and that took about a month but surely you got some of them before this if any of the boys around there ever think of coming out here discourage the Idea knock it out of their head some way if with a club for it is no snap it is all right when it is all over and a soldier is home once more to get all the glory he can but when you are out in the field and going into a fight and dont know whether you are going to get [?] or not you dont feel so gay but I dont think that we will see any actual fighting again I expect we will have more hard marching yet and we may still have more scrapping you dont know one hour what you are going to do I have no news of [???] you know more about the war than I do as we hardly hear anything and no doubt you hear more than is true, dont be anxious about me I am enjoying the best of health and get lots to eat drink & wear what more does a soldier want tell Billy Marshall I am making it pretty lively for the bugs with that hoe dag he sent me tell Dan I am going to bring Joe & him an old dutch pipe apeace am glad Joe kept him I thought I would be home in time for to work on the turnips but I am afraid I will be disappointed I am going to drop a line to Maggie tell Nellie I have an Iidea in my head that I will have something for her too how is Willie Joe does willie act orderly for him yet like he used to do does any of the boys take a sleep in the stable and have a case of the shivers dont let Rutherford or any body have my letters I have never got a times paper yet I think I will close so good bye

god bless you all

Noble