Fragment of Censored Letter
1916 Letter 5
Semiramis-Hotel
Cairo
Feb. 18 [1916]
Dear Mother –
Of all the dirty digs fate has handed us in the mail line to-day was the worst. Five letters from you from Nov. up till Jan.16. Five from Papa – two from Don – and heaps of others – all old. Thousands of bundles of papers. Of course it’s lovely to get them but they would have meant so much to us in Lemnos. Forbes got $35 worth of cigarettes for her patients and condensed milk, chocolate – and all sorts of things for the wards came in bales. The hard part of it is that our baggage is now excessive and we simply can’t carry half the things with us and it is so hard to give them away here when perhaps in a month they’d be worth their weight in gold.
I have nothing to complain of though – for my parcels, thanks to you both, came through in good time as you sent in small packages – which I realize now is probably more expensive. But some of the girls are nearly crazy. Whole cases of milk, bales of dressings – cases of cigarettes or chocolate and things they would have cried over two months ago.
I am so glad Aunt Teddy isn’t asking to have Winnipeg stuff sent to me any longer. I think Scoble is getting it and she dreads the parcel post now – because it means so much worry distributing the things, and the need here isn’t great.
I’m so glad too that you didn’t get excited over those rumours about lack of food and send milk, etc. because it would have cost out of all proportion to our need – when it would arrive months after.
Certainly the mail service was a disgrace on Lemnos – but as the English always excuse any back sliding by saying "But it’s active service" – what can one say – or do – for there’s a certain amount of truth in it.
#5 – Queen's – gave a tea for us this afternoon. They are expecting their reinforcements. It would be great luck if Helen Drummond came while we were here.
Had a long letter and shortbread from Mrs. Hardy. Her husband is now in command of #2 Field Ambulance Col. McPherson having been sent to England.
It’s such a loss to get so many letters at once. I knew I had missed a great many from you both.
We drove out to Abbassia after determining to take the train, which starts a mile or so from here and leaves you the same distance from your destination. We ought to get fat for we seldom walk. You can get a gharry for 5 piastres – a quarter – an hour and that divided among three isn’t too bad.
We saw a most gorgeous Italian funeral – dozens of attendants carrying huge wreaths of artificial purple flowers – then a lot of little girls dressed in white with tiny parasols. Then a huge gilded coach and a long stream of mourners and friends on foot.
And now to answer your letters – all the I.O.D.E. parcels arrived – the ginger snaps – only the other day. I wrote about the others from Lemnos. We enjoyed the Port immensely and the ginger snaps are awfully good. Thank them for me.
I thought a lot of my parcels had gone astray but they seem to have come after all. I am glad you told the I.O.D.E. not to send anything more – I never got the Norwood boxes, though I tried in every way. Red Cross stuff is the property of the Assoc. and they will rarely take the trouble to deliver anything to a certain person – it just goes into stores – but there’s no use telling people at home that. When people write saying they’ve send things c/o Red Cross, we always say "well that’s Good-bye", but don’t tell them that for it only sets them talking.
Am awfully sorry you had such a bad cold. Hope it cleared up quickly. All the girls letters are full of tales about the severity of grippe this year, especially in the States.
The Birdsalls must be nearly crazy. Anyway he would get the best going at #7 – for some of the best surgeons in France were there – at any rate – and I suppose if they have gone others have come. Will write them.
Have not heard of Dr. Boneher – we might as well be in another world for all we hear of Salonika – a distance of 50 miles from Lemnos. All mail went to Alex and back.
Hilda’s trip hasn’t been a great success from your accounts, has it? I can just imagine her relatives minds slipping several cogs in their efforts to keep up with her. After all Hilda’s mother has brought her up to accept friends and their invitations rather casually. I’m glad Eric has a commission – Mrs. West won’t mind his going quite so much, and Mr. West will feel better now that two of the boys are going.
Aren’t Mrs. Fisher and Mrs. Hall funny? Mr. Fisher must long to choke them both – a good many times a day. They’ve side stepped everything that looked like a trouble or responsibility all their lives and don’t seem to have made much by it.
I sent Aunt Lauder one of our unit Christmas cards. They were quite decent. I am on duty to-day – the 19th – with one of the girls who went riding and had a spill. She is all right but Birdie is keeping her in as a punishment. – To set your mind easy – I may say – that Birdie is so lazy she signs a whole package of envelopes for us at a time to prevent her been bothered every little while. So that she won’t see this.
Most of my letters lately have been posted by hand in England. They were very strict about censoring during the Evacuation of the Pen. but my dear, they’re like the ostrich who sticks its head in the sand and thinks because it can’t see that it can’t be seen. We thought the whole world would know about the Evacuation before it came off, for I’m sure Lemnos was full of spies. I wonder we make the headway we do, for we don’t seem to be in it for a minute with the Germans for science and organization or determination. We hear very little war news but it is very disheartening, at least out this way, but of course we are on the offensive everywhere against overwhelming odds.
Fragment of Censored Letter
This seems to be the most important theatre at present. Gen. Maxwell had a leave of sorts a while ago and no less than 124 Generals called on him. They city is full of brass hats and crossed swords. In Lemnos we stared after one – as a matter of course – but here they are frightfully common.
The English Matron thinks the head man here is a German, and certainly he is overcharging us on every occasion. One of the directors, I suppose, came in yesterday to look round and certainly he looked a typical German. But it is hard to rid a whole world of spies.
And now for your letter of Dec. 26. I’m glad a couple of letters at least reached you Christmas Day. We couldn’t do much in the way of presents. The letters posted in Manchester were taken by the Empress of Britain people who are mostly Canadians.
Of course the investigation has blown over – we all thought it would but none of us cared to take a chance. Cecily Galt is in England now and nothing has been said to her. Being who she is no doubt saved her skin. For the Galt-Tupper combination would have been a bad one to offend just now, and our Matron-in-chief is above all things rather a pusher.
Myra was nearly crazy as Judge Galt, in his zeal, asked for a transfer for her at the same time. I do not think Mrs. B. gets much information from Mickie who knows her family as well as we do, but Mrs. Lyman, Mryra says, is an awful talker and probably passes on all she hears in Ottawa. Birdie’s people are in a hardware business there and Mae’s and Myra’s and Mrs. Lyman.
There was nearly a murder a while ago. All Saints Church, of which Myra’s cousin is clergyman, and where the McCullough, Charlesons, and I think Lymans attend, had a shower and send box and box to Birdie, and all the Ottawa girls. They sent it in Charleson’s name and if the old devil didn’t keep every bit of it, using it as a store from which to outfit her office friends and little parties. Myra has pages in her diary of what was done with it. She got a small tin of cocoa, a few oxo cubes, malted milk, by asking for it for her patients, but precious little of it ever reached the wards.
Old C. was mixed up in a Yukon telegraph scandal years ago, and barely escaped the Pen. and is known all over B.C. as a grafter and by all appearances his daughter takes after him, for she is out for herself every time.
You just have to mention "All Saints" to those girls to start them off. They talk for hours about what they’ll do when they get the lady back in Ottawa – unofficially.
We aren’t fond or proud of our Matron but we might have worse. Her egotism is so abnormal that if we want a thing we pretend we think there’s no hope of getting it, and she moves heaven and earth just to prove how wonderful she is. But she lets us alone and we are thankful. When things get busy she puts herself to bed, and we run the place without her anyhow so it doesn’t matter.
She was "mentioned" but didn’t get a R.R.C. and that has cooled her heels considerably.
She used to run around asking the girls "If they had nothing to say to her". She tackled old Clint one day "Did you know I was mentioned in despatches?" Clint said "Oh were you – what for?" She knows nothing about what goes on in her unit and thank God we have a lot of girls who have a good time but know the limit. You could stay out all night every night in the week for she’d know. I think we have as little scandal as any unit there is, but no thanks to her.
But you don’t need to make it appear to anyone that I like her, just say I never have mentioned her, one of the girls friends tried your do[ ] and one of Charleson’s friends wrote her that Miss so and so had written such nice things about her. The girl was fit to be tied when she heard it.
Oh my this world is a funny place, and too darned small for belief.
I must stop now –
Yours lovingly.
Helen
14 snaps enclosed