Letters From the Front

Dated: December 14, 1916

Dr. William Gardner writes to his parents as follows:

I received a letter from Mrs. Kelly re Stanley's grave, and a tombstone, but it is against the rules to put anything up except a small wooden cross, with name and battalion on it. This I've done, and planted some bulbs over his grave, which should soon be blossom. Every grave has a small cross at the head, with an aluminum slate on it bearing the name, rank, number, and battalion of the soldier. In addition to this one can put up a larger and slightly more decorative cross. The carpenters here made me one with the printing in black “In loving memory”, etc. The cross is painted white. These graves will always be well looked after and there are now some 3000 in the cemetery. Have not succeeded in getting a picture of the cemetery, as the only camera allowed is the one in the hands of the official photographer, and seldom is he around, but I sent an application for a picture and shall surely get one. The end of the war is nowhere near insight; guess it is to be one of utter exhaustion. After all, would love to be able to say we should get home next summer, but guess that is out of the question. The mud, as Napoleon said, is the fourth element, we have to fight and the weather has been all on the side of the Germans, giving them time to dig new trenches and dugouts, so that their line is now about as strong as the old one was. Then again, we did not defeat them with any decisiveness; the papers giving quite another picture to what the men from the fighting line give us. German casualties, as published by themselves, have been 753,000 since July 1, which must be more than the French and British together: I should say, far more. Russia seems to have been able to do so little.

Was up all night again two days ago doing seven operations. Think I could operate on a wounded man now with my eyes shut, as we have now had here 1000 operations in the operating theater. Our staff has been pretty well reduced by having had to send men to the Somme.