Letter dated June 5, 1917

Dear Mother- You must be surprised to be having all these letters from me but just now I am in a very tiresome wait and must do something. We-the other boy on the car (ambulance)- and I are waiting in an “abri” (shelter) for “blesses” (wounded) One has come in but in the last hour all the others brought along have been dead and hence there is nothing to do but wait in this hole in the ground. Shells are going over from both sides and making a huge riot but as you can imagine crowded into a hole with a dozen “brancardiers” (stretcher bearers) on a very hot day isn’t thrilling. It doesn’t seem real at all to that this is war. The dead are so very dead – The shells sort of impersonal and everything happens so quick. This post is in a ruined town like the pictures in the papers but more ruined than any I ever saw in those and beside that becoming worse all the time. Will write you more later. The blesse (wounded) has not arrived but I am going to search food. Love, Paul