Letters From the Front

Dated: January 31, 1916

SPRING FIGHTING TO BE KNEE DEEP IN BLOOD

So Says Pte. W. H. Spaul, Writing From a Shell-Battered Barn.

WOUNDED THIRD TIME

This is the third time Pte. W. H. Spaul, who is mentioned in today's casualty list, has been wounded. In August, 1915, Pte. Spaul received a gun shot in the head and was removed to a base hospital in France, where he speedily recovered and returned to the trenches. In December, last, he was again wounded in the head, and this time he was invalided to England for recuperation. Later, he returned again to the front and today is reported wounded, this time a gun shot in the abdomen.

When war broke out, Pte. Spaul was a member of the 48th Highlanders, having been connected for a year and a half, and immediately signed for active service, being the third man to sign for overseas duty. Pte. Spaul is 22 years of age, was born in Clarksburg, Ont., where his parents now reside, and had lived at 432 Sherbourne street before enlistment. He was in the employ of the Gordon Mackay Company. In a recent letter with the date line, "Christmas night in a cow stable, somewhere in Belgium," Pte. Spaul said:

We came out of the trenches on Christmas eve. The rest of the regiment are in huts, but our section is holding a fort in the rear of the trenches -- the idea being that if the enemy broke the front line and in case of a retreat we have ammunition and rations sufficient to hold the fort till the last man and the last shot. Our billet is an old barn battered down by shells. The Huns have been very active along our front, and if I live to see the spring, we will be fighting knee deep in blood instead of mud. We have had terrible rains, the streams have swelled to rivers."

Later in a letter headed "Amongst the Ruins, Belgium, Dec. 28th," Pte. Spaul says:

We are sleeping in a corner of the ruins of what once must have been a model barn. There isn't enough left now for four cows. When the Huns retired, they took his horses, cows and sheep with them. There are no civilians allowed so near behind the trenches, so one of us go out each night to hunt the old man's cows in the fields. For our endeavors, we are rewarded with a can of milk.