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[From a letter written in France by Lance Sergeant John McNeill to his wife Janet in Vernon, British Columbia.]

I have not got my pass yet and I don’t expect it now for two or three weeks yet, by that time I will probably have got the addresses from you that I asked for, my how I am looking forward to that pass so that I will have a few nights rest in a decent bed, you ought to see these dug outs of ours, Price Ellison pig stys are palaces compared to them, we have to crawl into them on our hands and knees and every time we go in we take a lot of mud in with us on our boots and clothes and of course it gets on to our blanket and keeps it in a pretty mess, and the floors are wet, we cover them with sand bags, but the damp works through and they are lousy, oh so lousy, I think I would rather see a million bed bugs as one louse, they get all over one, and rats, I never saw or heard tell of so many rats in my life before, I believe there is a plague of them coming on in the trenches, some of them are as big as young cats and they are perfectly fearless, one cant get a sleep at night at all for them running all over one, I have an awful dread of being bit by the beasts they look so filthy and at night when I am on my rounds through the trench visiting the sentries, they will be running in scores in front of me and now and again one of them will turn and snarl at me just like a dog.

A very funny thing happened the other night, I noticed that one of the sentries was firing off his rifle quite a lot, so I went to enquire what he was firing at, as it was very dark and I did not think that he could see the enemy, when I got up to him I asked him what was the matter and he told me nothing, he was only shooting rats and here’s the way he was doing it, he had a chunk of cheese with him and put a bit on the point of his bayonet, by and by Mr. Rat comes up and starts nibbling at it, all the sentry had to do was to press the trigger and then put in a fresh cartridge, Mr. Rat had gone to the happy hunting grounds, it sure looked comical to see those rats coming to their doom and then they say there is no humour in the trenches, but taking this life in the trenches all through there is very little else that is amusing, it is mostly tragedy and tragedy of the darkest kind at that and when we go out to billets for a few days rest and look around us and find that we are not so many as went in, perhaps a comrade killed or wounded or others gone to hospital sick with trench fever, we begin to think that Hell cant be much worse than this inferno, but in a few days we go into it again as cheerful as ever, all discomforts forgotten till we are into it and then we start grousing again, ....

I am glad you are going to send me another photo of the children, but dear, you must get in it yourself too, I want to see you again so badly and the only way I can do it at present is by looking at your photo, so please dear send me your photo too, I do hope the children are all right again, have you seen a Dr. about them yet? You know dear, I am very uneasy about them as I should hate if anything was to happen and me not at home to help you, I am waiting very anxiously for your next letter so as to hear how they are, I am awfully sorry that I have not got something nice to send them for Xmas, but it can’t be helped, dear, but I will sure send you all some thing from Glasgow when I go over there and I am sure you and they will not mind very much if you do not get it right at Xmas, after all, it is not the season of the year that makes a gift acceptable, it is the love that accompanies it.