In the last letter I told you about the Dugout, infested by Jack and H Harding, etc. That is not the only. There is a fireplace in Billy Hamilton’s room also, and they believe in keeping the home fires burning. Bergmark, Watson, Geisel and a chap named Bonde are the other tenants. A sign on the door states; “This is no Y.M.C.A.” but that doesn’t mean anything. There is always a good crowd around.
Bill is certainly a character. He is Irish, tough and none too clean in person and personality. But he has a keen sense of humor, a great gift of fun and an original and laughable way of relating the most commonplace incident. He likes to have me around because he knows I appreciate and enjoy it all thoroughly.
He is the kind of Irishman who “doesn’t give a damn for anything.” He likes nothing better than to get drunk and have a good scrap. That isn’t any fun for me, but I do enjoy the vicarious benefits of his stories.
So I have two places to visit when I stay at home. Then there is our own room. It is comfortable here now. I’ve taken off my shoes and leggings and wrapped a blanket over the lower part of me, so that I’m comfortably warm. Also I have a good 10 cent American cigar, which costs 13 cents at home but 10 at our canteen. It’s not a bad way to spend a rainy Sunday.
Quarantines sort of follow us around, like the proverbial villain in the conventional melodrama. This time we are again the trite heroines – the villain still pursues us. Somebody here has tonsillitis, so they have called it diphtheria and confined us all. The joke of it is that we go over to work every day, mingling right in with lots of men and women in the factory. They seem to think the thing is contagious only after 6 P.M. But since it’s a medical order and a captain’s, one mustn’t criticise or break it. So we are having a good time around the place. I hope it doesn’t last much longer – the confinement, I mean.
Four minutes have intervened during which I had my hands under the blanket to warm them. Frank has promised to make an electric heater for the room out of some wire and nails. I have a trusting disposition and cold hands.
The war is beginning to look interesting. Do you realize that the Germans have not been strong enough to take the offensive away from the Allies since July 1st? That the whole Belgian seacoast is in our hands, including the two submarine bases of Ostend and Zeebrugge? That they are almost out of France and unable to stem the retreat in Belgium? That it is quite possible at some points for the Americans to reach the Rhine by Xmas.
Next post October 22
Letters from Sidney Friend During The Great War 