Letters from George Alexander Hugh Murray to his family, 1917 - Part 11

set out to take a place, it always falls to them
in the long run but some times it has cost them
heavily and by all accounts the enemy is
loosing heavily to for in a report from Germany
they said it is best now to husband the 
human beings & not so much of looking
to munitions & materials
Another mail boat sunk three lately & that means
 a bit of mail xx for the troops is lost & that
is the only thing we look forward to is the
mail from home so far away.
The hop picking is in full swing now & the
soldiers do a fair bit of it for it is a good
spell after the fighting.
When I came back from England I received
three letters from you one from Alex Jim & Linda
March & I have to set to and answer 

them All right receiving them but not so good
answering for it is always the same we are
allowed to write.
I have not seen a trace of any of Les's unit
yet but will hunt up when we get a
bit more settled for we are on the move
again tomorrow nearer the lines.
Well I have nothing more to say now so I
 

will close hoping you are all well
I am your loving son
George.
 

Belguium
Sunday 30-9-17
All at home
Received your letters by the last
mail also one from Linda written by F. Tarrant
& one from Les that was written last
June He put the wrong address on
it & it went to London then returned
to me.
Het has a school of her own at last.
Now she will be very cocky bossing
the kiddies about.
The fighting is getting very severe now
especially about the sector I am in nothing
but artillery fire day & night and a few
days ago there were 12,000 guns on
our side giving the Germans their own
rations. They did not like it for in the
lively four hours close on 3000 prisoners
were taken & some of them the pick men
of the German army.
I tried to get into the flying corp & if
that does not come off I am back
in the infantry & try my luck once again
 

Did you never get my letter with my new
address in 4th Div. Salvage company. It
is collecting ammunition & inspecting it.
Not a bad job but it gets stale & I am
sick of it & the sooner I am out of it
the better pleased I'll be.
Just before I came to it I dropped one
stripe & have had no chance of getting
it back here but one does not make
much difference.
I will have to hurry up with this letter
for lights are not allowed to be lit
after dark in account of the enemy
planes. Last night he got very close about
100 yards away got nine men & 2 horses.

By an Australian Comforts fund Fritz

dropped a bomb & did terrible

damage getting about fifty men killing

a few of them. A most terrible sight

Men blown to pieces gone with no heads

on & others limbless

I do not like the place I am camping in

for there is only canvas on the roof & one

[[?big]] thick on the sides not much to stop

a bomb