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- [Upper left:] COPY.
[Centre:] GEORGES TO SYLVIE.
[Upper right:] France 19/3/19.
My dear old Syl,
I have done nothing this afternoon, and had intended
using the spare time in writing home. It is a huge effort to write
these gloomy days, I find I have nothing to say. My mind is always
full of poor Guy and Paul, I should like to speak of them and express
something of what I feel - but I can't.
I look for your letters eagerly Syl, yet I find I can
only write scantily in return. You are a very dear girl to write to me
so often. - I ought to consider too, that unutterably great our loss
is, we still have one another left; we can thank Papa that we still have
Dan and Maurice and Andre, and also you and Mag. There are not many
families to be found so united as we are. Dan has added yet one more
to the family, and I feel sure she will be really one of us, just as
Gabrielle was and as also dear Maggie. There has never been jar or
discord among us, and I absolutely know that this was the secret of our
happiness, but oh, how terrible the blow, when it comes to those who
love each other as we do!
I was due to leave this isolation camp tomorrow, when,
just at the last moment another chap from our tent went sick with mumps!
What blessed rotten luck, - how I would have, even more, cursed and fumed
had it again cheated me out of joining Guy and Paul. Alas! There is no
longer quite the same cause for eagerness now. Still, I am dreadfully
fed up with this place, and am anxious to get a move on, and the idea of
another 24 days gives me the pip.
I shall go back to the 22nd. I shall find no pals there,
Minty seems to have <sup>left</sup> the Battalion, and the few chaps that I intimately
knew, who survived the Delville Wood affair, went under in this last
attack; the same applies to the Officers. Nevertheless, I feel I want to
be back with the Batt. in preference to any other because of the associations
and memories it will have for me tho' these will be sad - very, <del>v</del>
very sad.
[Right:] Tuesday, 20/3/19.
One of the men in my tent (there are only four left now),
is acting as postman, and so I get the mail always a few hours sooner.
Tonight I recieved a thick letter containing several enclosures. I was
hungry for news. Thanks so much dear <del>old</del> Syl for your long letter ex-
plaining in detail all that happened. The Colonel's silence is now ex-
plained; I shall be deeply interested to see what he says about poor Guy
and Paul, I know for a fact he thought the world of them, even before we
left for France. The Mayor of Kensington is an obliging man, isn't he?
What a really exceptionally kind old gentleman is Sir
Newman! I was glad to get his letter: I am pleased to hear he is coming
to see you and that he paid Papa a visit at the Comptoir.
It was jolly good of him to go to so much trouble about
the Commission business. I don't know quite what particulars I can send
Col. Bovill that will help. The Comm. papers were duly sent in and, I
suppose, cancelled on account of that Army order. They were completed
and forwarded from the Battn. at Dover before January 1st - just by a
day or two. (This was for the second time).
If anything could come of it, if Col. Bovill could get
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