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[Page 29]
E.9. St. Patrick's Hospital, Malta. 31/8/1915
[Annotated Copy also sent to May & Annie]
Dear Alf,
Your letter dated 20/7/1915 to hand to-day. I have been moved here from St Andrew's Hospt. lately – this is a camp or field Hospital. Malta is rather a pretty little place but I have not been able to see much of it so far as I can't walk yet without crutches which are a confounded nuisance. On June 7th we had three men on each gun in the firing line – we had just started breakfast when the Turks landed an 18 pounder on the parapet a few yds from the gun, it seemed to burst right in my face but did no harm as it did not come in our direction. However it covered us with dirt and spoilt our breakfast and our language. I scraped the dirt off my biscuit and put fresh jam on when the Turks repeated the manoeuvre on the other side of the gun and followed it up with one near the right gun, the result being no damage but much dirt, in consequence of which I was preparing a fresh biscuit hoping to get a few bites down before the next, when they lobbed one right into the trench between two fellows on my right. It blew one's head off as clean as though cut off with an axe one of the pellets from the shell entered the other's eye and killed him instantly and a piece of the shell hit me in the calf of the leg and knocked me head over heels and felt like a hit from a sledge-hammer. When the stretcher-bearers cut off my trouser leg I saw much to my surprise a large hole in the calf of the leg. However it has now completely filled up and I had skin grafted on from the other leg which has now nearly covered it. I expect to get full use of the leg in time. Probably I will be going to England shortly and may go on to Australia. By the way if I was a married man I would