A. SOLDIER'S LETTER

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 17, 21 January 1916, Page 2

A. SOLDIER'S LETTER

Mr. George Robertson, of the Government Insurance Department, has received advice that his son Eoland, who is a lance-corporal in th& Ist Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, has left the trenches in the .north of France, where he has been since July last, and is now on his way to the East, presumably Mesopotamia. Writing from the Red Sea in December last, L.-Cpl. Robertson says :—"We have another twelve Jays to go before we land, and the place where we are going to has communication about once a month. I hear that the'temperature is between 120 and 130 degrees where the fighting is, so I wonder how many of our chaps will be able to stand it. The heat is something terrific just now here. Salt baths are fixed up. round the deck, and are^full of Highlanders all day long, but, as the salt water is lukewarm, it does not cool dne much. We left the firing line about the beginning of November, and .were billeted in various small villages away back, such as L'Epinette, Steenbecque, Ecquedecques,' and ' Westrehem. After a week or two we entrained at a town called ..Lillers on the. 22nd November, and, packed 35 in a' van, came right, down across France 'to Marseilles, and the journey was the coldest I ever experienced. We reached bur destination on the 25th, and marched straight " on to the boat,, and stayed in'Uie harbour a couple of days. Nobody was,allowed ashore, sol saw nothing of Marseilles. We then put into Toulon, the .-great naval base of France,1 and a magnificent place it is. Nothing could possibly get into the harbour, as it is mined, and all the entrances are netted against submarines. We had tostay there until daylight, owing to the enemy, submarines having been seen in the Mediterranean, where both Germans 'and Atistrians are getting pretty lively._; So .'far they have got five or six transports, all' round about the same place. "Leaving Toulon, we came round the, north of Corsica, past Elba, and • down the coast. of Italy, and past Naples. Then, owing to a wireless from a French destroyer, we came outside Sicily, past Trapani,- a town on the north-west point of -tWisland. It is a large place, and took some time to pass, and then we went on-to. Malta, a quaint old .place, a relic of the Spaniards, and now one of our naval bases.. The harbour is a good one, and boats by the score, hovered round the ship, so we -got. news that t,wo cargo steamers had been blown up that morning On our boat, one of the "Canadian-Pacific Cmopany's boats, the Lake Manitoba, we had a six-inch gun, besides our cw> machineguns, so we could have answered back unless we were torpedoed in the night.' ■However, we got through safely to Alexandria, but? two transports that left two days after we did .were-tor-pedoed. Wa are now in the Red Sea, nearing Aden. It's terribly hot-to-day, and our fresh water is running short, and is turned off from 9.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., so you can guess how short we are. I cannot say where we are bound for, but -I hear that the Russians have smashed up the enemy badly in that part. .1 have fought alongside Sikhs, Gurkhas, French, and Algerian Zouaves, but hand in hand with Russians will certainly be a new-experience." _ Mr. Robertson's sesonci fon went with the sth Expeditionary Force, and his third'and remaining son enlisted last month.