Address same as when I left Australia. Add to it Number 4106 C Company Battalion –

Brig – Division France August 14/1916.

Dear Father,

This is the long promised letter which I have mentioned on several occasions. First of all for future occasions address my letters to above C Company Ball Brig & this address will always find me no matter where I go.

I have just received a letter from Aunt Clara notifying me of the receipt of �10 which I presume you sent in obedience to my request. I hope before long to be in a position to make use of it. I have also received quite a batch of letters from home and in all so far making a total in 5 months 21 letters from home. The latest date of the letters was June 10th so you can make out from this how many I have received of the total sent to me. I have not yet received any parcels but I hope to later on. I have also noticed that you are drawing my money correctly and have fixed up my insurance.

Well I have had no trial of fire & brimstone at the hands of the Germans and if report is true some of the Prussian guards were present on the auspicious occasions. Anyhow some of the boys got souvenir hat badges about the size of a small plate with eagles etc all over them which they say is the Prussian guard badge. I was in one bayonet charge of course and had horrible visions of slaughter etc. As a matter of face it was just like bolting across a ploughed field in the midst of a big fireworks display to me as I did not see any Germans who wanted a scrap as they cleared out for their lives when our boys charged. Of course I saw a good many dead men when I came here at first I did not go much on the sight but I soon became used to it. Some men look quite happy when they are dead and others have awful looks on their faces. On one occasion I was passing this a deserted bench & stumbled across a leg which was cut off by a piece of shell it was standing up in the boot with the putty still rolled round it. The rest of the body was on the parapet. Such sights as these soon harden a man and although I was raw and sensitive than when I first went into it, I think I have now become quite fatalistic and could tell you lots of things like this but what is the use as the war is full of such instances.

The stretcher bearers are wonderfully brave and do marvellous work. One chap I know was on duty for 30 consecutive hours and more lots did the same and walk all about in all sorts of places in no-mans-land and in fact are everywhere there is a wounded man and regardless of fatigue and ages and in fact they all ought to be awarded a VC.

We are living in billets at the present moment, all the villages are divided up into sections and all housing space is numbered off in sections according to capacity. The officers and NCO’s of course live in the best houses and the men sleep in the barns etc on straw and feed from our own travelling kitchens We live fairly well and get bread & butter, bacon, jam, tea & stew composed of bully beef, fresh meat & tin vegetables. We can also buy bread for 2/6 dozen at 10d loaf and a few other groceries at the same cheap rate. The Australians must be quite a Godsend to some of these peoples who are not too slow to get their cash for nothing as possible. One man who was charged with theft the other day for pulling a turnip out of the ground when passing a crop. The French people charge us what they like for their stuff and we can take it or leave it and they are not too civil either. When the Egyptians used to do the same thing the boys used to bust up the whole show but of course being in a friendly country.

Did you ever hear a shell explode. The Germans have plenty of shells no doubt about that. If you can imagine a noise all at once of a two storey house crashing to the ground just near you, you might fancy you hear an ordinary high explosive shell going off. In an attack there are thousands of them with machine guns like a motor garage full of motorbikes and bombs going off like dynamite in a quarry. There is also a pall of smoke and fine dust like one of those ‘out west’ sand storms. That is the fair idea of an ordinary attack. Men charge through that over holes in the ground caused by shells which make it look like a gigantic plough has been through and turned up the shell hole. I measured one 50 paces across and about 7ft deep. One night our lot had for company 3 dead men, who had been dead for some time and who were not nice company but when a man is digging for his life he has no time to consider his surrounding at all has he? I got that safe down about 4ft in.

This is the part of the world to see fine artwork. I have seen them loop-the-loop, double tumble and soar and volplane and fight hostile Taubes with machine guns in mid air etc. and I think our fellow are the masters of the Germans as it. It is a hair raising sight to see an aeroplane indifferently or with dozens of white puffs of smoke caused by hostile shrapnel there is all around it.

Well you seem to be kept pretty busy nowadays and I suppose that life is making you feel pretty well. It is a pity though you should always be away from home. That kind of life has come at the wrong end of yours hasn’t it. I am clearly living in the hopes of seeing English Aunts before I quit this earth and I am sure that what they say in their letters that I am in for a real good time when I do have that pleasure. They keep me supplied with parcels of biscuits and chocolates and for one occasion I have had a parcel from cousin Vivian from Dover. The French crops are being harvested at the present moment and I assure you they grow good wheat and oats here. They cut it down with a scythe and mowing machines and then thresh it. They don’t go in for fences here, Smith runs into Jones paddock and there doesn’t seem to be any bother at all. All the stock is hand-fed so there really is no need for fences. I could write a lot more about the French but I must stop somewhere and I will close now with best respects from your affectionate son

Walter.

France August 1916