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[Page 58]
8 weeks. The French people that I have seen, mostly the small town & country people, are fine, they all say that they are very fond of Australians who have really behaved excellently since being here. They say that they prefer them to the English as they are more like themselves, I see what they mean, the Englishman as you know is not at all easy to get to know or to get on with at first, but these French people seem a very intelligent & honest people who work like niggers, one sees old men & women of 80 & young children working all day in the fields. The women do all home & field work for the simple reason that there are practically no men to do it, one scarcely sees very few men about & practically never out of uniform & that is certainly as it should be at a time like this, yes the French are wonderful & the general idea of the ordinary frenchfolk is altogether wrong as far as I have seen.
I am now at an advanced dressing Station just behind our lines & have been hereabouts for the last 6 weeks, I must say I am happier than at any time since I joined the Army, at last I feel that I am really doing something of use.
I wish I could give you some real idea of what the Australians are like, not that you don't know them out there, but here they are revealed to me as never before & they are wonderful, the more I see of them the greater is my admiration & the prouder I am to be with & of them. They are the hardest cases too, I wish I could tell you many of the anecdotes of them, but as no doubt you know Australian wit is so interwoven.
[Transcribed by Judy Gimbert for the State Library of New South Wales]