Letters from Harold Edward 'Pompey' Elliott to his sister-in-law, January 1917 - April 1919 - Part 11

things : Yes I expect I will have a
bit of a handful with that laddie boy.
of mine when I come home again
But I am sorry to be missing so much
of their little ways.. I havent much
news. Today started out to be a lovely
day after a sharp frost but the
wind changed & it is now a nasty
blowy old day – [[ ^looks ]] like so [[ ^{it will} ]] it’ll rain
any minute. It would be
lovely if the whole family could
come to England but we’d never
get permission now & the danger
of it. Also people are all
going on rations & cannot have
meat to eat even once a day in
England now. We are ever so much
better off than they are in the way of
food but I think probably they
will be cutting us down a bit
shortly. & we could do with less I am
sure at any rate [[ ^for ]] those not
actually in the front line trenches
When they are there the cold & work they
have to do make it necessary to feed 
 

them well. Isn’t it terrible the
way the Russians have sold us
I am sure the leaders there are all
in German pay. Fancy disbanding
the Army & saying the Germans
would not dare to come on & then
when they did come on frantically
asking people to fight & then
taking any terms the Germans
will give them. I expect the next
thing they do will be to hand
over their fleet to the Germans as
they have their guns – We are getting
fired at now by British guns
that we gave to the Russians
to help them fight. Even so they
are little worse than Mannix
& Tudor who pretending to be
our friends are betraying us to
the enemy. You’d understand
why the men here are not all
in favor of conscription if you
were here. A lot see that with
Germany so Strong a terrible
lot are going to be Killed & they want 
 

not to be in that fight. They thought
that if reinforcements didn’t
come they be too weak to hold
the line & so they’d get jobs outside
the fighting line. Well that’s squashed
anyhow because we are going
to break up our Battalions
when the reinforcements dont
come & Keep the other Battalions
full. So they cannot scheme out
of it that way. I am delighted that
these schemers were enchared
in that way.
Others have been so long away
& seemed to think that if they
Voted for Conscription they’d have
to stay to the end of the war
& seemed to hope if Hughes was
beaten he’d resign & the Labor
party would bring them home
again.
Tell Gagy [[ ^Dhurach ]] I got her letter
about the Belgian Baby but
I haven’t seen a nice enough
one yet. They are not as nice as 
 

ours. Tell her to Ask Ickie Auntie [[ ^Violet ]]
for Rosemary. I think she would
do, dont you. I am so glad mum
got the £ 50. There is another that
I started off about New Year &
I hope to start another lot to her
on 1^st March next pay day. Then I’ll
have to sit back & save up again
for a bit. If one can manage not to
spend money it soon mounts up. I
get 19/ a day & it grows good if
one can only get along without spending
but if you started out with £ 100 shopping
it would be gone in no time. Fancy
£ 6-6-0 for a tunic & £ 2-10 for a
pair of Britches. Breeches & £ 2-12-6
for a new Cap. These tailors I am
sure must be making a fortune out
of the soldier men & boots & leggings
are just awful in their prices &
everything wears out. I’ve been
saving all I Know since I heard about
the trouble & I had [[ ^{the first} ]] £ 50 ready before
then only poor Geordie borrowed 20 of
them for a fortnight & then the fight 
 

started so it was a whole [[ ^extra ]] month before
I could get it started off. So don’t
think I’ve robbed a bank [[ ^now ]] or anything
or been blewing all I had before.
Course Last year there were no silks
or anything for Katie or you or the
Bairnies. I am sorry I was not
able to help you like that, or I should
say repay you for all you have done –
but you will Know that I’d like to
dont you ? I am delighted to
hear of poor old Mr Trowbridges
fine recovery of his health &
strength. Does M^r Dent Know
M^r Trowbridge ? I never Knew
of this. I have not heard of
Jack Prictor for some time.
I have sent Hugh Morrow
for a turn of duty in England
which will I hope Keep
him out of harm’s way for
a little while at least.
Col Layh has been passed fit for
duty out here again. I believe
though there is always a risk 
 

of their [[ ^ones ]] Lungs getting affected
once a person gets it [[ ^gas ]] in his
lungs. The Bosches have been
suffering a lot from our Gas
& I believe are anxious to have
it given up now. [[ ^that ]] They [[ ^have ]] found that
our Gas Respirators give us
such good protection. They have
practically run out of rubber & have
to use leather masks themselves
which are very hot & uncomfortable
& are not so safe. But the answer
is that they are such scoundrels
that we cannot trust them &
after we have laid aside
their [[ ^our ]] masks they would likely
start using it again so they
& we have just got to stick it
out with all its dreadfulness.
Well bye Baaby dear – thanks
for your letter & for trying to be
Cheerful & brave. I am pulling
round myself a bit. Until very
recently I was terribly depressed
& pessimistic – things were on my
nerves. quite a lot – [[ ^{better now} ]] yours (till there’s
Skating in Hell as the Canadians say) Dida 
 

France
11/4/18
My dear Baaby,
I have your [[ ^little ]] sperriky
letter of the 20^th Jan. Things are only
middling over here. A lot of the British
troops got their tails down & the Bosche
in consequence got very Cheeky.
Where the Australians have met
him he is now in a much more
subdued frame of mind. With Gods
help we’ll soon have him feeding out
of our hand. But oh those anti-
Conscriptionst blighters who wont
help us. If we had just a couple
more Australian Divisions I
believe we could walk into Berlin
One little machine gun of ours
piled up 200 dead Bosche in
front of it in a few minutes. The
average Bosche is a dud at soldiering
he has no Knowledge of Scouting one
bump of locality but is under an
iron discipline which compels
him on pain of death to go forward
in masses and break through
when we are wearied of Killing &
worn out or when some Regiment 
 

of the British runs away as some
have done. Of course they have had
a rough time & being suffocated by
poison gas is not as pleasant
a death as one would choose but
still one should not run away
from it. I fear many of the British
officers are absolute duds. Our
boys on the contrary are rising to
the occasion & have a great
contempt for the Bosche & nothing
less than 10 to 1 of him can
beat us at this sort of fighting.
And if it Keeps on I guess with
Gods help always to [[ ^{we will} ]] so thin
his ranks that he will not dare
to advance again – only send
us men & we must win.
I had the loveliest house in all
the world to live in. What do you
think of a dining room suite – of Indian
ebony – pitch black wood – with dining
room table side board & dinner waggon
with an inlaid border of silver representing
branches of fruit trees with the fruit &
flowers of bronze & gold. Except that
there was a little too much of it on 
 

the sideboard it was the most
exquisite work of the Kind I have
ever seen. The Chars were of wood to 
match the suit upholstered in red
morrocco with big square headed
silver nails all round the edges where
the leather was tacked to the wood – and
the Carpets – they’d make your mouth
water. The drawing room suite was all
embroidered tapestry lovely landscape
& figure scenes. There was a nice little
breakfast room with nothing of
great interest in. The Billiard room
had however tall cabinets from floor
to roof, – polished Walnut packed with
the most wonderful collection of
gorgeous butterflies. In this also there
were sort of peep shows – Every year
these people made a tour to some
foreign Country – India China Greece
Egypt – all the world really & everywhere
they went took stereo photos on glass
often in color photograph & mounted them
so that merely by turning a Knob at the
side the pictures changed over & you
saw the whole result of that years
tour. There were fully 20 or 30 of these 
 

each mounted in a [[ ^little ]] wooden tower of
polished walnut set just the right height
for you to sit in a chair & look through
the glasses which were like field glasses
& magnified & focussed for you in the same
way. I had no time to look at them
all but had a very enjoyable spe time
in my few spare moments glancing
through them. The smoking room
had a wonderful collection of old
arms & armour – a lot of it
inlaid or damascened with gold &
no doubt worth thousands to
collectors. It had Turkish Divans
& Persian Carpets – In my bedroom
there was a wonderful tiger Skin
rug hanging on the wall & a big [[ ^white ]]
polar bear Skin on the floor
by the bed side – It had a wonderful
Conservators with all sorts of
foliage plants & two big Australian
tree ferns & a lovely little
Cootamundra wattle all in
Bloom. I sent a bunch to Genl
Birdwood & Genl Rawlinson &
said it was a sign of Victory