Letter from Captain J. S. Pringle, serving with the British Army in France, to a female correspondent in Toronto, Ontario.

9 February 1915

What a delightful surprise I got when I received your letter. It was awfully good of you to write to me.

Curiously enough, it’s only a fortnight since I saw Gordon and Douglas. I was home for four days’ leave and Gordon came and dined with me in London. He hadn’t the slightest idea he was coming out here then, and then on my return journey I ran into Douglas who had just come home, and he told me Gordon was off, but where to he didn‘t know. I had a pc from Gordon since. He is with the 2nd Battalion but is nowhere near us. We are lying between Armentières and Lille but much nearer the former. We have been in the trenches since the beginning of November without much doing except fighting the rain: for about the whole of January our trenches were up to the waist in water, and we had to spend four days and nights in them at a spell, with an equal period out of them. So now I know all about the life of a water-rat, combined with the habits of rabbits and the way to burrow through the ground. However, I think the weather is out to behave itself a bit better now, as we have recently had a good deal of frost.

I hope things will get on the move soon as we are all tired of staying here. I wonder when this show will be over – the sooner the better. I hear some of the Canadian troops are over and in the trenches, they should make a good fighting lot. I hope you are keeping very fit and that I may have the pleasure of seeing you soon again in Scotland, and for more than the usual one minute that we usually meet for.