Dear Folks:
Think my pen is about four fifths dry but will write until it is dry and then I'll get a little ambition and fill it.
Have done very little today but mess around, stand inspections of various sorts and draw a new winter cap and sign the pay book. We were to have had a concert this afternoon but it rained as usual so we didn't have to play. I was glad of it as we would have played outside. This morning the sun peeped out from behind the clouds for a few moments and I guess it couldn't stand the popularity as it is simply pouring down now.
Wish you could hear the noise in here. There are about seven different gangs playing jazz tunes and a few more are practicing. It doesn't bother me any as I am used to it now and can write just as well as though everything were quiet.
This candle doesn't give me a whole lot of light. I surely know what one candle power or candle light means now. We have to use candles of course as the Government seems to have overlooked putting electric lights in this particular billet.
Well it is almost January and I have served seven months in the Army - time pretty much wasted too and it is surely being wasted now. We get fresh rumors every day about going home and I really believe that we are soon to move. The 41st Division is leaving today. They are somewhere near here. We hope to be leaving here by the seventeenth of January or perhaps sooner. We should reach Dodge by the first or the fifteenth of February. Now don't bank on that too heavily as we might not make it at that time. But if 300,000 go home next month we feel pretty sure that we are to be among them.
One of the boys from the 350th band just came over a little while ago. He knows some of our men. He was at Mount Ayr when that band played there on the Liberty Loan drive. He knows a good many there and at Tingley and Kellerton. He has been in school at Cedar Falls. Had a long talk with him. They have the same dope about going home as we do.
Don't worry over those red ink spots. I just had a small nose bleed and the handkerchief seems not to have absorbed all of it. It is a small matter in the Army - the mere loss of blood.
Don't know what I'll do tonight. We aren't showing anywhere tonight. The evenings are rather hard to fill in unless we have a show somewhere. We don't have anything to read except the New York papers that come in every day.
Saw Leo Ballard a few minutes ago. He is looking fine. See Burch and Leo several times each day as they are in our company and I see them both at the Personnel office of the Regimental Headquarters. Haven't seen Asa Huggins for an age and don't know how he is. He has a fine bunch of officers and they have excellent eats so he is surely getting along fine.
Guess you will have to wait until I fill my pipe as I can write much better with "me old Had" going in good fashion.
Am rather lost this afternoon. Cliff is out somewhere messing around and are hardly ever out of sight of each other. He is surely a good pal to have. We took our washing over to one of these French women about noon and I haven't seen him since.
Nearly missed breakfast this morning and I very rarely let that happen any more. I don't have to dust out for Reville and I overslept a bit. Had to do some tall scrambling to make it but did alright. We eat outside most of the time except when we bring our meals down here to the billet. Some days it is too cold to eat outside and it always rains at meal times.
Our kitchen is almost a block now from our billet. Had the "sweet and succulent bean" for dinner. I always did like them so fared pretty well today. There was no fresh meat in today so we are eating corned beef for supper - that is, everyone who likes it. I don't eat the darned stuff myself and haven't since leaving Flavigny. I never was so sick of corned beef in all my life as I was there. We were moving around all the time and couldn't get supplies so we had to eat it. I have developed one good habit in the army. I can eat or let it alone so when I don't like the eats I simply don't eat. Perhaps that is the reason I have lost fat. Now I don't mean that at all as our eats are good. It has been the long, hard and tiresome marches with full packs that took me down the hill to the tune of nearly thirty pounds. We have had some awful hikes. Just think of putting a load of seventy five pounds on your back and marching to Creston in a day. Guess that would take fat off a mule - let alone a human being.
I'll get some bread at the kitchen after a while and get some jam at one of these poor excuses for a store and toast the bread and have that for supper.
The wood detail just came back from the supply dump with our day's ration of wood. They are working like Turks to get it saved. That is what is called "detail."
My pipe went out and I'll have to light it again.
Zdarsky just came back from the Salvation Army hut and told me that "Mother" was saving doughnuts and cocoa for the orchestra tonight so we will go down about eight thirty and get it. We will go right through the crowd and back into the kitchen and "Mother" will have a big table for us and we will take our coats off and sit down to a table and eat like white men once again. We played for their services last night. It was like old times playing that church music and made one think of the Revival meetings they used to have at home and we played. Zdarsky just promised to play "Home Sweet Home" for me. How the bunch howled at me for asking him to do it. You know how that tune never makes me homesick but seems to rest my soul. He is playing some serenade now. He is a wonderful violinist and has Esther Luce backed clear off the map.
Grant
