Letters from Harold Edward 'Pompey' Elliot to his family, November 1918 - February 1919 - Part 3

7 30/11
2/12
He is getting pretty well off now
I think with all his land etc.
I thought he was doing wrong at
the time buying in such a hot dry
district but it has turned out
very well. Is. there any sign
of Bairns there yet. Katie.
Have you any idea what age
Liz is? And have you seen
any thing of her lately at all.
We are still at Fevril dearie
I think we will be moving into
Belgium close by Luxemberg
in a day or two. If you can
find a place called Ham we are
sure to be somewhere near there.
Ham is on the Meuze I think &
had a lovely chateau which
General Hobbs as our new Coys
Commander is going to live in.
I am mighty glad the war
is over as ^neither I nor any of my
officers have the least confidence
in Tivey. He always used to
be held in Reserve & the boys got
to say that old Tivey had a
double headed penny & used
to toss up with me to see who
would do the fighting & of course
always won & didn't fight
[*And they are very disgusted that he is now
put over me. Millions of love & kisses
from your Very own Dida don.*]

Favril
France
4/12/18
My dearest Katie,
We are still in the
same place and a very damp
dull old place it is. However
we shall be moving forward again
about the ninth inst to some
other old dull damp place
which will be a change for a
little while no doubt. On Sunday
the King came to see us. at
We got the men all assembled
in a paddock near Landrecies
& after a considerable wait in
the cold he arrived. He was
introduced to me for about
the 3rd time. He had a very
hurried walk round along the
front of the men & then had
to hurry off again. The two
Princes were with him. The
Prince of Wales had quite a chat
with Col Scanlon and the
Prince said he was going to try
& spend a month with the
Corps as soon as it had
settled into Winter
Quarters.
We are now sending away
men who enlisted in 1915 on
leave to Australia or

nominally on leave. Actually of
course they will be discharged
on arrival there. I suppose I
shall be sent along to you
one of these days. No one
knows when apparantly & so
its no use worrying about
it.. What do you think about
me coming home. Will I do that
or try for some job about the
Empire dearie. I don't know
that I have much chance of
getting anything at all.
There will be about ^a millions
of people after every job that
is worth having & the ones
that get them will be mainly duds
with a lot of influence behind
them
Dhusach looks such a dear little
girl pet, Katie, in her photo that I
am longing to see her. She seems
to have a wonderfully broad & high
forehead. The laddies looks very
narrow beside it.
Heaps of love & tishes dearie
from your Very own Dida Don.

Dourlers
France
10/12/18
My dearest Katie,
Once more we have
come to a pause. This little Village
is situated about 5 or 6 miles
South of Mauberge and very
near the Belgian Frontier. Going North
through Mauberge the frontier is some
four miles further on - on the Mons
road. Going towards Charlroi
it is I think rather further there ^as the
frontier bends round to the South &
comes a little nearer ^at Mauberge in that so
that going due East we come to the
Frontier a little bit sooner
The men had big empty barns
to sleep in but as these are
floored with wood & they have
straw to lie upon they are
more comfortable than they have
been for a long time. The
country has however been stripped
by the Broches of every thing the
shops have not a thing skerick left in
them the farms have no cattle
sheep horses or fowls rabbit or
even pigeons. The Broches have got
the lot. In many places they tore
down the ornamental iron railings
round the gardens & grounds but
mostly hadn't time to carry this

off with them & it lies in broken
heaps every where. I am very
comfortably lodged in a nice room
with ^a walnut suite. I don't know
how it escaped unless it was that
the owner was of some use to them.
He was a doctor too old for military
Service & he died about a week
ago & just a couple of days
before his son who was a prisoner
in Germany returned home. The
latter was with his Regiment
at Mauberge in 1914. After the
British fell back from Mons
Mauberge was defended for some
three weeks by its garrison of
30,000 or 40,000 French but
eventually they had to surrender
to the Broches. He was sent away
& kept away until the Armistice
when he was set free & returned
home to find his father dead a couple
of days. His mother is a dear old
body who has fixed my room up
very nicely with nice clean sheets
& all. On the day of our arrival we
had only some sandwiches to eat
& she found out & got to work &
made us a nice drop of soup &
some coffee. She is very big for a

French woman Very tall & straight
& rather stout. She will have
been very good looking when she
was young & her cheeks are quite
clear & rosy still though she must
I think be fifty years old or more.
She has a second son a lad about
Seventeen. who is thirteen years younger
than the elder son who was in
Germany. The latter has been given a
months leave by the French & then he must
go back to his Regiment for here
in France they are not talking
as the British are of the war being
all over yet. & the French people are
not squealing as the British are to have
the Army demobilized at once.
I am enclosing a photo of my
French Interpreter and his [[?]]
He has been with me ever since
we came to France & is a very decent
fellow. Col Denehy has returned
from leave but is still suffering
from influenza or something
like it. I was very glad he got
a bar to his D.S.O. for the
last fight of all. Five
Stewarts people got their
V.C's for the fighting about
Peronne where they lost heavily.

They were all non coms - one is dead
but the other three two are still living.
I am afraid we will get very
sick of this job in a short time
there is little to do except fill
in hundreds of forms about
the men to decide how they are
to go back to Australia etc etc.
If there were shops to buy things
at or even hotels where the men
could go in the evenings it
would not be so bad because then
they would be brought into contact
with the people & time would
pass but as it is it gets pitch
dark about 4 pm & stays like
that till nearly 8 am in spight spite
of the fact that we have altered the
time to agree with the Daylight
Saving bill otherwise it would
be dark at 3 o'clock but rather
brighter at 8 o'clock in the morning
than it is now. Its a melancolivios
country in the Winter with dripping
skies & hardly a green leaf showing
& so it will slack until next
April. Here's Christmas nearly
upon us & they say it will be
May next before Peace can be
signed at earliest.

I expect I will be lucky if I get
back next year in time for nary
our 'Versary. I am wondering what
they are telling you about out
there. Katie whether they are
saying we shall be back soon or
still a long time away. There
are dreadful doings in Russia
it is said people are being
murdered by the Boschervics
right & left as in France over
one hundred years ago - So the
British Fleet has been sent to
Kival in the Baltic Sea, & to Odessa
on the Black Sea to restore some
sort of order & some of the Labor
leaders in England are squealling
out about it. Some of them wonder
do quite a bad things and the
Boschevics if they got loose
& in power properly I believe
Well dear old Katie love
God bless & keep you all. With
love & millions of kisses for you
& the wee pets from you Very own
Dida Don.

Dourlers
France
13/12/18
My dearest Katie
We are still in the same
place & still having Very bad weather
It has been one unending drizzle for
days now. Our Belgian Interpreter
M. Rontzes has been away on leave
to Liege to see his lady love from
whom he has been parted over four
years since the war started - he only
got four letters at the time so you
can imagine how eager he was
to go & see her. He got back today
& brought me a little Souvenir in
some picture Postcards showing
all the Bridges over the Meuze, as
the Broches left there when they
retreated & blew them all up as they
went. Most of them in the picture show
temporary wooden structures placed
by the Engineers over the gaps made by
the explosions. I am posting them
to you to see. I also enclose a letter
I received from a Mrs Whitmore-Jones with
Views of her home. I have never met this
lady yet but she has been very good
to a whole lot of my 7^th Boys - in fact
they called her the Mother of the 7^th.
She is about 50 years old & her husband
died only a little time back
& so she is very sad & lonely

My dear old loving lady I wish
I had you with me I am very
lonely for you & very "fed up" with
things so need your comforting.
arms about me to put me into
humor with the world again. I
was reading in the Blackwood's
Magazine today a life of Sir Walter
Raleigh & how he was persecuted
& imprisoned & robbed of his property
& finally had his head chopped off
all because of spite & jealousy
because he tried to do right as
he believed it. His cheerfulness
under it all was wonderful & as
he stepped on the Scaffold he stooped
& felt the axe - "Tis a sharp medicine
he said, "but it will cure me of all
"my diseases." And when his head
fell - one of the crowd who witnessed it
called out. "We have no other such
"head in England." Katie dear he was
a great man -. I can well imagine
how he felt. His wife was ^devoted dicklus
good & loving to him Katie dear &
the last thing he asked her to do was
to get back from the King some letters,
(which he had written to him
asking not she put to death) because