3 June 1919

Le Havre
3/6/19

Dear Love

At last I have started on my homeward trip. I got notice at 10 pm on Friday last to catch Saturday’s draft so it was a bit of a bustle. Left Charleroi at 9 am Saturday and got here at 2pm on Sunday and will be leaving next Friday for Southampton, arriving in camp at Warminster on Saturday afternoon. Should be leaving there for home in about six or eight weeks, so I will probably be starting when you get this. It is quite probable that we will know our boat & date of sailing within a few days of landing in England and then I will be cable you at once. It is quite possible that I may be delayed a little, one of my court martial cases is still unfinished and the accused has been sent to England but as the witnesses are civilians & too old to travel the case will have to be tried in France so we may all have to come back again.

The weather has been fine for about a fortnight now and the country is certainly looking splendid. Even the devastated regions are covered with a mantle of grass & flowers and were it nor for the battered villages & towns one might almost pass through without noticing where the old trenches were. Close to the line of course, one could see the torn earth and here & there, pathetic little plots of cultivation a few yards square, where the inhabitants were commencing to redeem this vast wilderness. Here at Le Havre the traces of war are gradually being removed. The camps are almost empty and already a start has been made at dismantling them. In the town one sees more civilians than soldiers now. The shops are well stocked and the crowds in the streets are putting on a fashionable and pre-war smartness.

I often wonder nowadays what it will be like getting into civvies again and that reminds me that I must get a suit or two before I leave England or I’ll be stranded. I suppose the tailors out there are kept very busy by the demobilised soldiers. It won’t be very much longer, Sweetheart before I actually commence my life over again with you. God keep and guard you ever and help me to make myself more worthy of your love. Ever and only Yours Viv.

 

 

 

 

NEXT    >>

top