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[Page 45]
France
25 April 1917
Dear Mrs. John
Just before leaving England I got three splendid letters from you, and I assure you those three old letters were the best friends I could have had today: you see I generally get the blues when travelling as a soldier, goodness only knows why – it seems to make one realise each time how little one knows about the war, & to realize how long it may last, and then in sequence I wonder when I shall get back to old Australia, and that completely does me in: I've gradually got more & more homesick, and the travelling brings it out: it seems so useless spending days doing nothing, waiting on steamers & trains, always crowded, & always waiting for orders.
So being by way of an old hand now, & knowing myself, I saved up your letters till now. I'm well fed, comfortable fire, ink to write with and so on: and I've read the letters & got cheerful once more: and the cheerfulness will last me on till I get up to the front & have a job again to do.
I got offered two permanent jobs in England – and one out here as an A.D.C. [Aide-de-Camp] but did not take them: a healthy fellow has no right in England, not doing A.W.C.