France. 22/11/1918

Dear Father,

We are actually en route for Germany, we left Vignacourt last night per train. The train carried the whole Battalion, lock, stock and barrel, including the transport, horses, and vehicles and troops. so that we just simply entrained as a complete outfit and disentrained as a complete outfit. We only came as far as a village called Bertry, near Le Caleau and from there the battalion moved to a place called Bohain. The Company has remained here in Bertry to unload the brigade transport as it arrives. We have already unloaded three trains and are waiting for the rest to arrive, when we will unload them and then march to Bohain to join the rest of the battalion.

This job is not too bad. As soon as a train arrives at this dilapidated siding, it is promptly swarmed on by 50 hefty Australians and limbers and GS wagons are trundled off very quickly. They are then limbered up and driven off en route to where the battalion is going. Our journey of over 70 odd miles has been over the dilapidated province of Picardy which has been fought over for 4 years and consequently presents a very cheerless aspect. There is not a village for 50 miles which is not a skeleton and the land is all dug up by shell fire or trenches.

Now thank goodness we are past that desolate strip and are among the less battered villages on the other side of the desolated strip. These villages, including Bertry have been released quite recently and there are a good number of repatriated French people. British prisoners of war were used as beasts of burden by the Huns who made them lug guns about and for other work like that. They fed them miserably and the British Tommies used to pass the house of the French woman I am living with, every day and used to ask for bread which the people could not and were not allowed to give them. However the French people managed to give them boiled potatoes occasionally, but one day a French woman was caught and sentenced to 3 years imprisonment. The civilians never heard any news of the outside world and it was only when an aeroplane dropped pamphlets containing the news, from the sky, that they were able to find out how the war was going. It must have been a welcome sound to them to hear our guns coming closer and closer every day until at last the storm burst on their own village, passed it and they were free. The French people are very emotional and cried for pure joy.

Every stick of furniture is gone from this village, also every bit of lead and copper etc. which the Huns took for munitions of war.

(The following 2 paragraphs seem to fit here. A search of original documents will resolve)

These poor devils all have similar stories to tell of the savagery of the Huns and when one looks at them you can quite believe their stories. They have been robbed, browbeaten, starved and bullied for 4 years, and all wear a kind of sullen, downcast look and if they are asked to do any thing by us officers they rush to do it as if they were still frightened of us. lt was the German way. In Bertry the Huns took every thing from the civilians and only left them bare necessities to carry on their daily lives with. For instance the people were only allowed one suit of clothing etc one bed each and a set of cooking utensils, etc. The Huns took everything else and sent it back to Germany as loot. The Huns used to probe the walls and gardens for secreted valuables and in fact carried on a systematic programme of plunder. Now the civilians have nothing to bless themselves with and are dependent for support on the Army. From here a matter of 250,000 civilians are being rationed and lorry load after lorry load leaves the station, loaded with loaves of bread to feed them.

The French people tell one or two romantic stories. ln one case an Officer of the East Surreys was slightly wounded in the Mons retreat and he was secreted by the French people disguised as a woman. He used to go to work at the local factory every day as an ordinary French woman. This lasted for 4 years and now he is released. Another Officer did the same but he was given away by a bad French woman who informed a German officer. The Hun therefore shot the Frenchman who was hiding the British officer. When the British took this village the French people informed them what the bad French woman had done and she was handed over to the French who tried her for murder and gave her a life sentence. The German officer was cordially hated by all and sundry. He seemed to have been an arrogant bully, to his men and the French civilians, they took everything worth having from the French to provide for their own comfort and made their own men work to that end also. So that it was looked on as a great event by all concerned when a Hun officer got killed. They held control over their men by fear rather than leadership. For a long time here in Bertry, British prisoners were used as beasts of burden etc. I could go on telling you yarns like this for a week but have not the time just now. Believe every thing bad you hear about Huns as they are devils and I am glad I have killed MY dozen or so.

Will write you shortly telling you the news as we proceed in our long march to Cologne. The Huns there will wonder what has struck them when they see decent Anzacs.

Yours affectionately, Walter.