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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1918-10-25, Page 70 YeT()P;F: •5, 1918 TEE IJUR()IN 'iXPOSITC11. . 9fl1IIHIIHUI3IIIThHIIIItHLIIHUIUIHIR 1 ....n sunny cr4v,tititi- SU F..;* LT E Itn I BILLY'S LETTERS FROM re FLANIARS = = immillillitliiiiii1111111111111111l1111111111A (Continued from our last issue.) Dear Mother,—Although it was only yesterday 1 wrote yea the mood is on me to -night and I want to have a pa- per talk with you. You see, dear, there's something new come into icily life and I jug don't know how to cope with it Although it's old, old, I guess it was old when Nineveh and Tyre flourielied; yet right now in ray own time, my own heart, it is very real and so I wait to tell you about it. You'll doubtless remember, dear, I spoke often withM the last two years or so of having a home of my own. , The ardent longing that ever and anon ` pressed upon me for something. other I than the vacuum of a room when• night came on- It was always night when I the desire came; night, when my thoughts, relieved from the duties of the day just passed, spent their own time in rambling day dreams. Al- ways with night-time came; I say, that insistent little wish for something beside a bar room, a club, a theatre, a gilded 'restaurant, or the four walls of a bedroom. Well, dear, I suppose that wish was the forerunner of the new something that has burst out into my days and nights. - That something that I suppose must be called Love. In retrospect to -night, 1 cannot re- call any event in my life of any importance that you didn't lanive about first With the exception of a few boyish secrets that really cannot be considered, I fail to rake from mem- ory's heap, one joy or sorrow that your mother's intuition didn't learn of or that 1 didn't tell you, and so, dear, I want to go to you to -night, my Mother Confessor. Since I've really grown up and known my mind 1 don't think I've ever been what is popularly known as a lady's man. I never had my nails manicured but once, and as a juggler of macaroons at afternoon teas I'm a decided frost. In fact, re- duced down, I guess I failed to qualify in the opinion of the ladies.. I am no Apollo and as a matter of ,fact was too fond of my Ostomoor to arise early enough to titivate myself. Perhaps, largely because I had no incentive other than a desire to be only .neatly dressed, 1 aroused in no woman more than a passing interest. I was al- ways content to dance with them, take them to a theatre and home, with an occasional kiss surreptitipasly stolen (I've fattened myself). Selfish per- haps,1 made, hyself leasant, or trieto, because it gave Me pleasure to trot out a well dressed,,good look- ing damsel. But when 1 left her, that ended it. But now, away over here in war OiSlf 00111MMOMO OE, kilren Chir PA,s- iargtors 1 GIRLS! LEMON JUICE IS A SKIN WHITENER How to make a creamy beauty lotior for a few sesta • The juice of two frebn lemons strained into a bottle containing three ounces of orchard white makes a whale quarter pint of the most remarkable lemon. skin beautifier at about the cost one must pay for a small jar of the ordinary cold crearn-1. Care should. be taken. :to strain the lemon juice through a fine cloth so i0 hinen pulp gets in, then this lotion will keep fresh for months. Every woinan knows that lemon juice is used, to bleach and remove such blemishes as freckl, a sallowness and .tan and is' the ideal skin softener, whitener and beautifier. lint try it! Get three ounces of orehard white at any drug store and two lemons from the grocer and make up a quarter pint of this sweetly fragrant lemon lotion and massage it daily into the face, neck, arms and hands. • ,.....ga*Ititi.01•11•14•1. to lend on Farms, First, Second Mortgages. Call or write me at once and get your loan arranged by return mail. No advance charges. E. It. REYNOLDS, 77 Victoria Bt., Toronto. 0' ebnidr&-Ea Cry FLEMT,R'S: - 0'4: A F3, 1' Es. Sure! High Heels 1 Cause Corns -But Who Cares Now 944.94,410.4....•..0.,...1.110E.SaallAIr 4•11.4, Because style decrees that women crowd and buckle up their tender toes iu high heel footwear they suffer from COMS, then they cut and. trim at these painful pests which merely makes the corn grow hard. Thio suicidal habit Elay cause lockjaw and women are warned to stop it. A few drops of a drug called freem oue applied directly upon a sore corn gives uick relief and soon the entire corn, root and all, lifts out without Palm Ask the drug store man. for a quarter of an ounce of freezone, which costs very little but is sufficient to re- move every hard or soft corn or callus' trete one's feet. This drug is an ether compound and 'dries in a moment and simply shrivels up the corn without inflaming or even irritating the surrounding tissue or skiI1* Clip this out and pin on your Fife's dresser. 1 ridden Belgium, comes the grand de sire for just one Woman: It's a que psyehological fact, that every man i khaki wants a wife; witness the wa wedding. X presume it's the old pri mordial instinct come out He seem towant someone to leave behind;some , r n r one to fight for. He seems to want the sensation of the cave man, that of battling for one being, his woman' the natural supposition comes that it's one woman, my woman. At any rate constantly there is, before me, the vi- siozi of the face of the "Girl I left be- hind me." Queer little memories that come intruding into my mind, which should perhaps be employed in the weightier problem of figuring out how many tins of the inevitable plum jam in platoon should draw in to -night's rations, or some similar worry. But as1 say, the memory of her intrudes in so many ways. Sometimes on a route march; as I swing along an the self -same monotonous step—for one gets to be an automaton at marching 7 -the pictures of her come back. A picture of how she looked the first night I met her, of the profile of her, marked in enemory's.book at atmovie,. of sitting in the gleam of a grate fire, of the last weepy moments before the tram left All these and many more recur witlyinsistent demand for my at- tention at queer times, and in queer placee. I think that every night in that magic space of Minutes .that are one's very own, the fleeting thousands between the time I -slide shiveringly into a blanket and the drowsy instant I fall asleep, comes the mental picture of her. And because that has always been a sort of sacred minute of mine •own, a moment for my deepest thought, my sincerest resolutions, I feel sure that Love has come to me. As I said before, the sensation is new—the longing for one person in all the world, so infinitely foreign hereto- fore -4 cat scarcely dissect my feel- ings, can really not comprehend it. Albeit, the desire for her is there, the heart -hunger for the sight of her, the wish to be beside her tonight, now, and ever. Everthe plans for a future horne—that seems to be the goal of all the thoughts, no matter where the 'train of memory started, nor how tor- tuous the road; always the end is in the home I'll come back to, the home I've planned. Billy. •••••••••••••••1.. Somewhere, April 16, 1916 Dear Mother, Your Tetters of March, 20, 26, 29 all to hand. I re- ceived a parcel from Eaton's. Thanks very much. Also the parcels from Atmtle for which I am going to write. 'Well, my dear, I sent you a scriol led little note some days ago but you' see everything is all right. The pr?7sci- ence of the future was a little strong that evening, 1 fear me, but I sure felt queer. As a matter of fact nothing could have been more quiet than that evenrng 1 es s I mustn't let rny vivied ima • ation run riot any more. The nery s strain is absoluteiy too much, so e not do it again. Well, dear, I'm still on this trans- port job and I can assure you it will be somewhat of a relief to get off. You see you sit on a nervous horse and head a procession up to. the ration dump. Its . too belly cold blooded an affair for me. There one sits in calm majesty, as it were, and from the time you start out till you get within a few hundred yards of the ,trenches, Fritz heaves over H . E. shrapnel and whizz bangs—all very, real, forms of frightfulness. Then as one gets up to the line the road is peppered by indirect machine gun fire, and still one sits and takes it You see there is no retaliation- eif one is en a front line trench, well you could work of your superfluous hate by fifteen rounds of rapid; or you know that by a telephone you can have your supporting battery heave a dozen or so onto the heads of the Huns, thereby proving to hint you are asleep; but this old transport job is such a helpless, hopeless affair. It's as much the moral eject as anythipg, for each time you st4t out, you Imaw- that somewhere alontethe road you're going to run into it and you bake that thought into a russet brown as it heats in the oven of your mind. You tee Napolen said an army moved on its stonfach, and while movement these days is jag a trifle different from his time, Tommy to -day has to have his beans, bully beef and jam, etc., just the same. There is no such word as" can't in the bright lexicon of a sub- altern, and I am thinking it applies even more to a transport officer, for no excuses are accepted if rations don't come. If you get a bump there is a sergeant, if b'oth get it, a corpor- al ,and finally a driver to every team, who'll do his duty and get the stuff there, • However, it is a wonderful experi- ence to ride along a road that is be- ing shelled. Perchance in the glory of a suntet, or in the light of the old moon, or yet again- on a coal black night with rails making the roads like a banana , peel on a granolithic side- walk, and you as miserable as a hu- inan being can feel. It's wonderful. I say, to look into the hell of a big shell that bursts fifty feet away and of which you can feel the concussion. In fact, the longer 1 ani here the more wonderful this war seems. The psychology of the human elethent is most amazing. The other night as I rode up a road ,above my head was the whish -whish -which, ad infinitum, of machine gun fire, while on the ground the put -put -put of the same, or rather other guns; and, will you believe me, 1 found myself humming "Little Gray Horne in the West." That sounds in- credible, but nevertheless it is abso- lutely a fact. . Well, Olcl Murnsie, I'd like to re- count for you some of my impressions. For instance, can you imagine riding along a roadway, .with the moon be- neath a cloud and from right to left, the light of a thousand of flares going up; flares that make the white lights at Toronto Exhibition Fireworks seem like a candle, as against a 100 watt Madza. As I say, flares radiating a pale white glow, guns booming, rifle tire cracking ,and suddenly, out from the cloud, comes the moon and there, beside the road, glistening in the light of Luna, is one of the small grave- yards which punIteated the land. Per- haps fifty men have been "dumped"— that's the word— under those mounds, with the scant short liturgy of the ser- vice read over them; and you see the gleamingewhite wooden Grosses like so many spectres standing out against the ground. "God's Acre,' if ever there was one, not one acre, but thous- ands that forever ancl a day will be a lasting tribute to the manhood- of the • Empire. . At one place along my route • • end pain, prevent festering and heal. This is why those who 'Save once used Zara-Buk will 'lever. iuse any other °halfwit. Miss Viola Hubley, of tipper Go. ehen, N.13., writes: "My sister had sores on her foot that ,commenced like boils and then discharged. She suffered such intense pain that ehe could not wear her shoes and had to remain in the 'house. We cam- . mewed using Zam-Buk and the pain soon d1sappeare, Then the. sores stopped d1schargIng and be- fore long the places were entirely 4ealed over. We shall devil., be without Zain-B k ,again." For eczema, bloodetolsoning and plies, 4uts and burns Um -Bp le equally,good. All dealers, 50c box. 1 there is a tiny roadside shrine. It stands beside a road untouched, and Sentinels the tin white forest of 437( crosses that loo out of the night ' That's but on ' pihture limned in bold lines on my .braine there are dozens that I can't write of But one is a ride in moonlight through a ruined city. Can you picture a city. as large as, well, Brand.on, a city noted for its wonderful Gothic architecture, abso- lutely razed—not a whole building left —here .a wall, there a conglomeration of debris; a city tof homes and stores deserted, save for a few soldiers who control traffic through its streets and who live like ras in a cellar? I know you couldn't picture it any more than my poor pen can write of it, but still I wonder if You cab imagine the impression. 'etched on my mind as I rode between tho e ruined walls while the moonlight sif ed between crags ef bricks and fantastic minarets of mom ` tar. I dismounted the . other night and went into the ruins of a seventeenth century Cathedral ,a glorious struct- ure in its day, a world renowned spot; andthere in the dusty debris of its chancel 1 stood and thought. Gone -was the spell of sanctity that pervades one as he enters a consecrated place, gone the inimitable gothic work of its al- tar, gone the images of gold and porcelain, the gold lace of the altar cloth.- Never again will the Nunc Di- mittis be chanted, never the incense of swinging brazier scent the air, and never again will a black -robed priest from his latticed 'confessional box lis- ten to the story of human frailties. It's hard to tell you, Mother o' mine, just the thoughts thataame and went, hard to dissect the n tes that sound* in m I y heart; but on that was as a clar- ion was the abse ce of a GOD. That may sound funny or sacrilegious, but it was the uppermost thought' in any mind. Here a house of His wrecked until only a wall of broken stone and a statute of the Virgin Stood to remember it by. ' Avywayelierewith a small piece of h arnade lace (lag from al out the debris a d presurnebly made by palefaced nun as part of the altar cloth. I'll try and get some more I for Auntie. Do not attempt to wash it. I also have some stained glass which I'll not be able to send yet. Well, dear, its bedtime, which is a moveable feast in this land, and one must grab as much as you can when you can. Love to all. Billy: April 27th, 1916. My Dear Mother, --I've been waiting every day for a letter from you, but o far it seems that there isn't one. It's over two weeks since one came, and every day, I've put off writing, patiently waiting so that I could ans- wer it. There really lint very much news to write you this ime. The transport, officer came back, so I return to my company to -night . The transport job was all right but Pel just as soon go back to my Plato n. However, the C. 0. in turning ov r to the T.O. said I had done good w rk and he would re- member it; also, he wouldn't remove inc were it not for the fact that I was a senior sub. in the regiment. So, to -morrow nightj up we go into the trenches, into a real delightful spot; at least de1ightfi1. in the fact that Fritz make e it v ry warm there. Cas- ualties have beefi quite heavy there lately. From` thet distance comes the sound of a ban playing "Marching Thro' Georgia" ai.d do you know I've a sneaking wish 1 were. The bands out here are surelyaj great delight for, on an afternoon, fr in the four quarters come marches, altzes, or overtures, punctuated by ai occasional artillery prelude, and non too pleasantle oblit- erated by,,the stiddent skirl of the pi- -broch. Negerthe1ess the old adage that music Mth charme holds good out here and our say ge breasts are sooth- ed and our minds refreshed by the airs, be they martial or motherly, that out from the famous rn to a cheeping fife every band sends Coldstreams, do and drum, Humor out here is a saving grace and I can assure you there are lots of chances to aceuire the grace. For instance, while passing through a cer- I teal town which has been, and is, con- tinually shelled, a soldier on sentry duty in my heal ng said, "I was sent bacit to do base duty. This is a 'ell of a' base." ThiS caustic' remark was made as he stoped head was being shelled, and as We stopped Fritz lobb- ed over a couple of shrapnel just a- head some twenty yards. Of course no one who hasett been out here can appreciate the story. You know the setting ere the crux penetrates, but I rode along and laughed as much as if I were in Shea's and Al Jolson was But whafI started to say was that the meg hamorous humors we have are thd home papers with their vivid descriptions, etc., gleaned by men who never go nares to the front than where the rail had is, also the letters from budding officers in Canada. For instance, read on -the-other day. where a subaltern in —, nho is in charge of the recruidin of some battalion, said he certainly ,didn't think that any- thing could be so arduous. I'll bet if that guy knew how many latighs he handed a lot of us out here he'd feel qualified to start an act in vaudeville, • • also bet that if half the gang in Canada who are breaking their necks to get 'commissions realized the' re- sponsibilities -entailed by a Sam, Brown belt and two stars on their sleeves, they would not be so anxious. It's jake swanking around Canada as a Major, but its different over here. One's responsibilities seem enormous, and really are, together with just the same discomforts and hard„work that anyone on the front line goes through. Your men, while they are men and must not be treated as child- ren, depend absolutely on you for their very being. You ane a' sort of last resort for everything in their lives, from clothes and food to seeing their effects go to their people after they are gone to the "Last Parade." You know, dear, I sometimes think it's pathetic the dependence of these chaps on me, and one only really realizes what a King's Commission means when you get out here. • I believe they've stopped publishing casualties . or are going to, op now you'll never know whether we have been bumped or not. I've not found time to write to anyone but you, lately, so you will have to convey my love or regards, as the case may be, to everyone. Heaps' of love. • . Billy. May 13, 1916 Dear Mother,—I ihave your letters of the 16th, 18th and 22nd of April, and although I've been out of the trenches for five days I've not been able to concentrate My theughts on 'ting. We spent eight days of veritable hell in a rotten part of the line, jyf fact the worst part I've ever been in. We occupied a series .of holes, some con- nected and some isolated, ranging in distance from thirty to fifteen yards from Fritz's lines. They were old German trenches taken some time ago, 4't and it is almost impossible to do any great amount of work on them. Well, as I say, we spent the tine in them, and I was heartily thankful to get out. 1 went through my first heavy bombardment at reallyclose range. They dumped "Grumps,, ' Coal Boxes, Shrapnel and Whizz -Bangs to the number of -about three hundred all around us for two hours and then at- tacked. Just as night overshadowed daylight and objects began to grow in- distinct, one of my sentries reported a party „out in front. Suddenly from Our right, rapid fire and maehine guns opened up, and so I gave :the order "fifteen rounds rapid." Keyed up and ready. were the boys, -4nd we gave them a few hundred capsules of steel. Squeals, grunts and tnoans, then the reverberating roar of maalsine guns end rifle fire ceased. So, our first real attack was repulsed. Further on, our• line suffered more heavily but I guess we were fairly lucky- All the 'night ;they kept at us with bombs, riflegren- ades and trench mortars to which we replied in kind vigorously, but they learned their lesson from that taut tense ten minutes. Ne more attacks. That is, I suppose, a pretty 'tame story of a bonibardrnent, an attack, its repulsion, Wet words fail me. The confines of 'expression are not compe- tent to tell you much inoee. I have refrained from writing, hoping that in the interim some inspiration would come that would adequately convey to you a pieture 1 tried to dissect my ,emotionatso that you might visua- lize, partially at least, what a day and a night—twenty-four tours in a front line trench mean; but I have failed dismally. To -begin with, 'the nervous strain is great, and when one has his heart brokenin addition, it'm hardto lhnn for another, the lines etchedeon your i soul, the mpreesions registered in your memory. resh,.and Fragrant An Everyday Delicious Beverage Black, Green orMixed. . . Myiheart was broken, dear, because before this bombardinent at. all I lost eighteen men of my own platoon;, eighteen of the best and truest fellows I have ever known; saw five of them die—one in my arms—all hit by these devils of-Hans—hit by snip- ers who use explosive bullets—a bul- let that tears a hole as large as a tomato can, and if it striltes, anything and i bursts into three pieces, each-tthe size of a quaster, that maims and woUnds—aa bullet that if it hits the hea.d. tears off the top. God! I wonder if you could even imagine the primordial lust of battle that courses through one's brain, the desire to kill that permeates the mus - ale,' the exhilaration that comes when you know you've actually .tiit one of your enemies. can hardly say there was no fear did 1Ca a, the fear I had that domi- nated • For months, in fact long. ere we left eking moments was not li 439 Sealed Packets only at Grocers . - will I be afraid, but will I be able to control my fear. .I was always fraid I would be afraid. Well, after bombardment ceased I wasn't, and ev- en during that two hours of mental torture I wasn't afraid, just nervous. But when I • knew they were aetually corning; ah!! who exhilaration 'what „primeval bloodly thoughts 1 hadi A valiant desire came amid the fight to do all the damage I could, and 1 rush- ed from bay to bay of the sector of trench I eommanded,, exhorting my men to be steady and cursing them if they weren't, here grabbing an extra: rifle and blazing its magazine full at the %Indistinct forms, or there firing, one shot from my revolver. No fear, no thought of self; just the hope that we'd beat them off; lust the thought constantly of what was best to do, how best to pieserve every life in my charge—every life in my charge that was preserving my life. So you see, analyzed and tested down, the ancient self-preservation rule holds good. - (Continued Net *Week) • te, e s - • „tee- tt....ttatatated ttte-ttt When will it end? Thousands . upon thousands, endless thousands, hold their lives cheap as the price of •Victorious Peace: And we as we watch from afar their heroic efforts— may we be able: to say, that the little we at honie could do, we have done; • • rlikrat ..17; ra'• —that in so far as we -could Suppoit - them, lighten- .thefr -burdens, bring them corn - forts, we havedone it; ''Eit,erSitO.LEE411.40-,11141EZP., —thet we have striven un- ceasingly to shorten their stay in the Hun -made Heli —that freely, fervently, unitedly, we have laid. our humble offerings alongside their noble sacrifices on the altar of Victory—and Peace. arassanommusaulas Another opportunity to lend your individual weight to the blow that will shorten the war comes with the offering of Victory Bonds about to be made. Let not the privilege to do your share find'you unprepared. Issued by Canada's Victory Loan Con- mittee in co-operation with the Minister of F inancc of the Dominion of Canada. 4 fr, If '4* Si- a., , ‘,—a -tarat-a• ti,