BX November 21, 1916
With Engineers on Firing Line – Sapper Walter Hunt Tells of Method of Making Quarters Comfortable – Canteens Active
A cheery letter descriptive of the way the Engineers are treated at the front have been received by relatives from Sapper Walter James Hunt, who is with the 10th Field Company, Canadian Engineers, in France. The letter follows:
Well, I am with my company at last. They are a good bunch of fellows, and I like things fine, I guess you think that we are always cold and miserable out here, but here in our billets we are making out fine. I am in a tent – not a bell one, but a V tent and we have a stove in it. I slept on the floor the first couple of nights but this morning I rambled around and a fellow gave me a bed, or rather I took a frame with some pigeon wire nailed on it and nailed on some bags, and now will be pretty comfortable. Nearly all the other fellows have some sort of a bed, so we are fixed up pretty well. We get as good food as can be expected and get it regularly, and there are canteens around where they have biscuits and canned goods. Things are better than I thought they would be, but I don’t think that the infantry is as well off, as they do not have the regular hours.
If the battle of the Somme picture ever comes to Brantford you ought to go and see it. I wish you could see some of the German prisoners I’ve seen. They look as if they are treated pretty well, far better than what they treat our prisoners, and I wish you could drop in for a minute and see for yourself the morale of our troops. I have not met any who are afraid, and they start out for the trenches as if they were going to a shop to work – no excitement or any good byes or anything. We have just been issued with tobacco, 50 cigarettes and a package of pipe tobacco. They were paid for by the Citizen’s Tobacco Fund of Canada, and I can tell you the boys appreciate it. I don’t use it myself, but I divide mine up among the other fellows in my tent.
I had to walk about 18 miles from the reinforcement camp to where I am now. I and another fellow came down with some infantry, and we were pretty tired when we got to headquarters. The infantry officer didn’t know where the engineers’ camp was. He turned us over to a guide and we tramped about for about an hour but could not find the engineers’ camp, so went back to headquarters. It was then about 6.30 p.m., and we had been walking since about 10 o’clock in the morning, carrying our packs and rifle. We were pretty tired. At headquarters they told us where our camp was, but we were just about all in, so a sergeant took pity on us and took us down to the sergeants’ mess and got us a good supper. The cook was a decent fellow. He cooked us each a big piece of beefsteak with onions, three cups of tea each, ham, cheese, and bread. Then when we got down to our camp the sergeant major got me a nice warm tent for the night and was going to get me some supper, but I told him that I had already had it so you see we are treated fine, and a fellow certainly appreciates it and tries his best to do his duty.
