Sullivan letter diary, 27 October 1915-9 October 1917 / Eugene Sullivan - Page 288
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[Page 288]
France,
17th.August 1917.
My dear Parents/.
You will be glad to hear that we are now resting in the country at a considerable distance from the trenches and are like to be here for some time. The village is very small and very few of the inhabitants speak any English. Most of the other villages at which we have been billeted have been anglicised and I found no use for my smattering of French. Here it is standing me in good stead and I should be able to improve my knowledge of the language considerably before we leave.
As the battalion is scattered, two companies being here and two in the next village, our detail has been split up and Jack Warne and I are attending to the sick from the two companies stationed here and the rest of the detail are with the others. We are very comfortably quartered and have arranged with the farm mistress to allow us occupy a bed in the house for a few francs a week. It was quite a shock to climb in between sheets
again and we found them so cold that we were almost reverting to our blankets. Once they had warmed up a little we couldn't have wished for anything better. Most of us were pretty well fagged out when we arrived here at dusk having marched twenty odd miles and done a train journey of thirty miles and Jack and I weren't long in occupying our luxurious