Letters From the Front

Dated:

Flying camp Beaulieu

November 16, 1918

Dear Adam,

I intended writing to you for some time but always postponed it. As you'll see by the heading I'm visiting Leslie. He's flying this morning and I have a chance to write. As you will know before this reaches you, the last drive is over in France, and it is now merely a question of advancing according to orders, with no shells to complicate matters. It has been a wonderful fall and I've seen sights I never could have imagined. After we took Cambrai the villages east of it were little damaged, and we lived in style, until we came to Bouchain and Denain, two large towns on the west side of Valciennes. Here we added more style. We were pinched out of the line for a few days by the salient being cut out, so settled down in Bouchain. Settling down means we went around and picked it the best looking empty house, which in our case happened to be a drugstore, and then cleaned it out. It had an oak floor, in one room, and a tiled one in the store proper. So we got a rug, which must have been 6 inches thick, and spread it in the bedroom. They we skirmished around and picked up four beds, plush chairs, tables, mirrors, a clock, etc. There was an open grate in one room, so we soon got plenty of coal from an old German dump and had a fire going there, while a German field stove -- made out of a round can and fixed like a Québec heater, soon fixed the other. One chap went out and returned with enough hand-painted china dishes and cut glass tumblers to put the mess tins out of order, while two silver candlesticks, and a couple of lamps equipped the building for lights. The night before we slept in the mud with only a rubber sheet under us, and an ammunition wagon over us to keep up the rain, so the change, the following night, to be in a building, dry, clean, warm, and bright, made it practically impossible to sleep. However we did. You might think taking this stuff was a crime, but when the civilians returned, they treated it otherwise, for we made it a rule of taking the stuff only from damaged houses. When the people returned, they had to walk around for a few days, looking for their stuff, but when they located it, found the furniture in as good shape as when they left it, for we destroyed nothing.

When the Germans fell back they took all the people with them, the soldiers going around to the doors before dawn and calling to the inmates to come out. If they didn't they went in and tipped them out of their beds. But once Fritz had moved back 10 kilos or so, he turned those people loose, but mixing up some spies among them. Later on, being closer pushed, the Germans had no time to force the people to go with some and had to leave them where they were. The people were hungry and afraid of us, by the stories told them by the Germans, as a little example will show. One morning an old man, his wife and daughter, came to our cook-house where the cooks were issuing the breakfast. They were offered a drink of tea, but the poor creatures were afraid it was poisoned. The old man finally got enough nerve to take a sip in and cried out "Tres bon! Tres bon!" The Germans treated the people harshly and levied taxes on the villagers at every opportunity. One village had to pay 1,000,000 francs or a girl, who had been caught carrying messages to her people on our side of the line, would be sent to jail for 10 years. The peoples of these towns had a sore time under German rule. The prices charged in the stores were terrible, candles $1 apiece, boots for children and woman 180 to 200 francs. There were no boots for the man, clothing was impossible to buy, while food was rationed and the small German war loaf of bread cost 20 cents. Matches were 10 cents for 50, and so on. The Germans took over all the gardens and grew vegetables for the army. They had wonderful gardens, often being miles in size. They cleaned out most of them before leaving, but cabbages and others of the same variety were still there, and we certainly made many a stew.

I must close now, but a little story may interest you. I was wandering thru a town and came along to the church. The old priest standing outside listening with evidently the greatest pleasure to the music a Canadian was playing on the church pipe organ -- the tune was "Oh, you great big beautiful doll!"

Your brother

Watson