1 73 Charlwood St., London, S.W. 30th Aug. 16 My dear George, I was very pleased to
get your letter this morning (at
present I am at Hale Common, Farnham
nr. Aldershot, so your letter went from
Mortimer House, to Charlweood St. & on here.
I often wondered where you were,& how
you were getting along since the great
& glorious charge of the Ulster Division,
you bet your boots I felt as proud as
a peacock when I read all about it
later. I would have given anything
just to have been at hand to help
the boys who were bowled out, but
only the young & fresh are allowed
the privelege of going on active service
wish I was 20 yrs younger I'd
be near the firing line. Our Div. 2 got an awful slaughtering, but
not a man showed the white
feather, 'Carsons goose steppers'
made a name for themselves
which any regt. might be proud
of, a friend wrote me that the
Nationalist papers were all
dumb on the subject. The enclosed
cutting I cut out of the 'Post' &
had sent in to Arthur on the 6th
not knowing then that he had
been put out of action on the way
up, bit of shrapnel through
left shoulder & one of the R.A.M.C.
men turned him, the letter was
returned to me last week: so the
cutting may interest you or some
of the boys. Arthur was in a number
of Hospitals before going to a Convalescent
Camp at Eastbourne & on the
16thth inst. he & a number of the Ulster boys crossed to Belfast on leave.
I saw Y.C.V. on the shoulder of one
of the boys, all seemed in good
form, I had a couple of hrs with
Arthur, he expected to be sent
back to the Ulster Div. base at
B. Sinclair until further orders.
A big number suffer from shell
shock Lieut. A Wallace was sent
home, has go another mths leave
& is at some ng. sea port. It
wd do you good to get sent over
to Eng. or Ireland for a while
not much chance of a cure
within sound of the guns. You
seem to be luckier in the
weather than we are, it has
been very wet, awful thunder
showers; much colder. Sunday
it showered at intervals all day 3 Yest. it never ceased, today has
been fine since about 9 A.M.
but there is quite a cold feel
in the atmosphere. Your Auntie
sent me a card from Euston that
she was off to Ireland & felt very
sad having no one to see her off, if
she had written to me in time I
could as I was on the idle list for
a short time after leaving
Mortimer House. Letters just in
from Steele, the boy I though had
been done for, I nursed him at Tring
1914 & have been writing & sending an
odd paper since he went to the Front
last year, he has been attached
to another Batt. & so did not get the
pcl. or papers, but said the boys
had maybe more need of them that
he had. I do hope to hear a
good account of your mother 4 from your Aunt, I expect she is longing
for a sight of you, and surely
they will send you home for a
wee rest soon. Have just heard
that Arthur is at Ballykinlar,
he will probably be sent out with
a draft soon. I pity all you boys
when I turn into my comfy bed every
night, we do not half realize all
our men are doing to keep us safe
here in Eng. The Rumanians
joining the Allies has given the
enemy a bad turn & it looks
jolly like as if 'Tins' will have
to follow suit, the Bulgarians &
Turks must feel jolly sick now
that they ever trusted the gentle
Hun. & Austria. Well we
have got the whip hand now
&must keep it until Germany 5 is stripped bare, no peace until
they have paid for all their
deeds of destruction. Unfortunately
we cannot take a Hun life for every
foul murder done by them, but
they must be made to pay in some
way. I am scribbling this in my
pts. room. I feel very ashamed
when I look at your copperplate
writing from the trenches at 11 p.m.
With many good wishes & most
sincerely hoping that you
will get home for a spell Your very sincerely Nellie McCotter I have two nephews at the front somewhere
one is in the R.A.M.C. Dr. Norman Davidson
& the other Chaplain R.C. Mackleoun
you may come across them
sometime. 6 RC
10/9/16
repd
2/10/16 Hospital APO4 Lce-Corp G. Hackney, 14/148 15
1414th (8) Batt. R.I. Rifles, Y.C.V.
B. Reg

France 19 Ward 35 General Hospital 7 Rear of envelope Two date stamps Army Post Office B 9 sp 16 B 10 sp 16