Volume 1: Letters written on active service, A-L, 1914-1919 - Page 16
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[Page 16]
Imtarfa Military Hospital.
Malta.
18th September 1915.
Dear Mrs Dunlop.
Before coming here I had no time for letter writing especially the last nine and ten weeks – before that we suffered for a want of letter paper and envelopes. Work came very heavy – not at once, but ranges into intervals – but two months before I left Gallipoli, it was continuous as doubtless you have read in the papers. But newspapers reports we take not the slightest notice of – We who are behind the scenes, know better, oh too well, and newspapers cease to interest us as far as war news is concerned.
I received your very encouraging and delightful letter right in the midst of a very busy time, and I know you will forgive my apparent dilatoriness in not answering sooner, as there were many interruptions, and letter writing in trenches and at war generally is difficult in every sense. In my rest time, in a great many cases, – and those exceptions were when I was feeling "out of sorts" – there are many things to run down one's health, and I realise now why only the strongest are picked for war – I used to go round and do anything in first aid to the wounded in other flanks. Do you know before I could realise it my strength slipped away – and I thought