Letter from [Aunt Robie] to Ethel

PR82/8
Oak Lodge
Dec 18th
My dear Ethel
Congratulations to you & Stan on the  
birth of the little son & all good wishes for
a happy Christmas & New Year in these
anxious times.
I need hardly tell you how anxious we have
been about Reg when he was in the firing
line. He rejoined his old regiment the 5th City of Londonn
just before war was declared & had a very severe
training at Bexley, East Greenslead & Crowborough. for
4 months under canvas. The Bishop of London
was with them all the time & drilled with the stretcher
bearers. I heard his last address to them before
they went to the front & shall never forget it as
he stood in his bishops robes (with [[?]] legs
below) his back to a little pine plantation &
4000 men standing in a bracken covered hollow
in front. On the day before they started he held a
confirmation in camp-
On October 28th 1000 picked men had orders
to go to France they were part of the 3:^d
Expeditionary force consisting of 80.000. with their
guns ammunition horses food & everything isnt
it wonderful how they have been moved
 

about. they landed at Havre
At first Reg was billeted in a disused monastery
on a hill near St Omer but in ten days time they
were in the firing line. it was awful work in the
cold & mud for on some nights they had 15⁰ of frost
in the trenches & when one is soaked to the skin
with no possibilily of drying or changing one
cannot wonder that half our sick & wounded
trains are full of frost bite cases
Reg was shot on Nov 28 the bullet grazed
the right. & went through the left leg. an inch
above the knee. He was laying barbed wire at
the time & had been at it 7 hours & made an
entanglement which was a" real beauty" he says.
he was in front of the first line of trenches so was
shot at such short range that the bullet went
through the bone as clan as a whistle without
fracturing it. Isnt it wonderful the Doctors say
they have never seen a similar case. there will be
no fear of contraction or perneaneul injury I hope as
the bone was pierced & not broken.
Mercifully the man who picked him up
was of his own hut, a medical student, who gave
him morphea. He had an awful journeyto the
Field ambulance where he was inoculated against
tetanus It was only 2 miles away but it took
 

2 hours - for the men sank up to their knees
in mud at each step- he stayed in a barn with 5 other
wounded men that night, then on in a horse ambulance
over bad roads. I think he was unconscious during
part of this ride. arrived at Ballieul where he spent
I night; then to the Distributing Hospital I night, then
10 hours in the train to Boulogne.
I went there to him (a wonderfully interesting journey
for it is almost as hard to get-out of England as to get
in now.) & found him on the St David Hospital ship.
Crossed back the next day after a long talk with my
housemaids young man a Scots Greg who has been in
a General Hospital Boulogne for 5 weeks. then I met
Reg at Southampton & managed that he was put on
to a London Hospital train & was not sent to
Aberdeen or Cardiff ! where the others were sent.
He is now at St Marks College Hospital Chelsea
 is getting on well, as cheery & jolly as ever &
already begining to ask - What can I do next ?
I go there every day so my time is fully
occupied & I write in the train as I come & go.
When Reg is well enough to be moved we
are longing to have him home- Bernard
came up from Charterhouse last Saturday
to see the wounded hero. they have 2000
boys Old Carlhusians either at the front - or doing

home works for their country so it is a
splended record They have taken in some
Belgian boys. & their Sanatorium is full of wounded
soldiers. The boys have marches field days
drilling & shooting  every day & are full of
enthusiasm
With love to you all from us
all here
Yours affectionately
Aunt Robin