The Letters of Arthur Martin-Leake January 1918

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12/1/18

My dear Mammy

The thaw began here two days ago & has been pretty rapid, all the snow has gone & of course the place is pretty mucky. Am rather glad that the cold has gone as under these conditions it was not altogether pleasant though quite healthy.

Thanks much for your letter of 7th arrived today. You also seem to have been having a very cold time & I am very glad to hear that you are fit & well through it all.

I saw the death of Charlie West in the papers, he constantly did very well all through & it is bad luck.

There has been lots of big talk by our leading men & everybody seems to be pleased; no doubt we shall reach these ideals, but it looks a long way off yet.

I hope to start on leave in about 10 days from now if all goes well.

Best love & hoping you are all fit.

Y[ou]r affect[iona]te son
A. M. Leake

{87148}

14/1/18

My dear Mammy

A large quantity of cigarettes have arrived from you. Thanks very much; they are much appreciated by the men, who are very pleased & send thanks to you.

We are not doing much just now & only trying to fill in time with training. There has been much rain during the last two days, & a great deal of wind today. We don’t stand wind & rain well when they come together because they find out the doubtful parts of our roof & make parts of the building uninhabitable.

The new D.G. of the Med. Services will doubtless cause a great stir & much jealousy among the upper ranks. Should imagine it is a splendid thing, but they still want to comb out a lot of the useless senior people yet.

There seems to be a great deal of wind about at home just now, & if this is just to move on the man question it is quite right. Otherwise there is no cause at all to be windy; the Boche may have a good many more men from the Russian side, but they won’t be able to do much & it only means more of them to be killed which is a good thing for the world when peace comes.

Hoping you are quite fit.

Best love.

Y[ou]r affect[iona]te son
A. M. Leake

{87149}