Probably Belgium.

9/1/1919.

Dear Father

I have just received a few letters from various members of the family written on the Nov 4th..

You have not then received the information about the Armistice and the chief topic of course, was Gert wedding. I am glad to know that she has been successfully wedded, but was very sorry indeed to hear that you yourself were not able to be present and it must have made you very disconsolate. I should have liked to have the pleasure of them are now taking consolation in the hope that I will be amongst you all in a few months, which is indeed a bright prospect and one to which look forward to. I often wonder to myself how I have managed to scrape through it all since you know that I have a constant plodder and did not miss much of the fighting and line work whilst the war was in progress. At the same time I think that I can honestly say that I never worried my head at any time about whether I would get through or not but there occasionally feel on bit fed up with the hardships, especially when a ? .

Things are very quiet and dead over here now as there is absolutely nothing doing except loafing all day long. For the past three months I have been attached to Battalion Headquarters as sports officer. That is, I arranged all manner of sports and recreation for the men and do no other duties. Sport nowadays is the chief method of filling of time and keeping the men fit and contented and I believe that I have been successful in my efforts. I attend endless meetings Brigade and Division and hobnob with Colonels and Majors and receive miles of typewritten stuff about sport and the organisation thereof etc and out of all I have to manufacture a program for the men.

We are running a Brigade competition in hockey, soccer and rugby in which the 20th is taking a successful part. In addition, I am running boxing and a recreation room at night where we have euchre and dominoes and drafts tournaments. There are dozens of details to watch such as finding and fixing up rooms and grounds and getting lights fires goalposts, money and arranging for transport etc so that I really have a very busy time and I consider I am the most hard-working officer in the Battalion. If my teams lose a game I get to chafed and bantered unmercifully and am called the ‘Sports ? ‘ by disrespectful people.

Education is another means of filling in time. So far it has not been successful and it is an great fight between the officers in charge of that department and myself and as the men prefer sport to school, I win easily. If the EO sends men to schools. I get them back for my football teams and so the game goes on. I like the job though as it brings me in close contact with the best and bravest of the world’s fighting forces the Australian Army infantry and I treasure their smiles and salutations when I passed them.

Tomorrow, a draft is going back to Australia. It includes men who left Australia up to June 1915 and 108 are going from the 20th and it makes me sad at heart when I think that perhaps I will not see most of them again. I do hope something is done in Sydney to form an A.I.F. club or that something similar is formed, so that we can all keep in touch with one another in the future. I have known most of these men in and out of danger for three years and there is no pal like a man who fought alongside you know.

Tomorrow I am going on leave to England for the fourth time and will go through generally, Chaleroi, Mons, Valenciennes, Arras, St Pol and Boulogne. I intend to see all the relations and visit Edinborough and when I return, I am going to try to visit Brussells for a couple of days as they say it is a second to Paris and is comparatively close. If I am in France long enough I am going to try to get to Paris before I go home and so far I have not been there owing to lack of funds. When I get back I will be able to spin some yarns won’t I.

Well, I will close now by having that you are well especially mother and hoping to be to see you in the new future.

I remained.

Your affect son

Walter