114 Calabria Road, Highbury, London, N.S, April 2, 1917 Dear Friend, Please convey to the members of the Sunshine Bible Class and the Smithville Red Cross Girls' Club my heartiest thanks for the very welcome gift, the box which arrived just recently. After being sent to Aldershot and then here, it arrived with everything in the best condition. I enjoyed the cake immensely and the other eatables as well. The gum seems especially Canadian; one never sees it in England I am on my final leave awaiting orders to sail for Bombay. Five of the original class often are going. We expect to spend a little time in India before going to Persia. I look forward very much to our short stay in India; I had never dreamed of seeing that country. No doubt it seems an unusually long time for me to be in England. But the nature of our work demands a great deal of training. Those of us who wish may remain permanently, and one cannot expect to qualify for a commission in any regular army in a very short time. Also, our fellow-officers will be regulars from the Indian Army. Our three courses have been one long competition, and any whose interest was not always kept up failed somewhere. The most interesting part of the work for me was the machine gun course at Grantham. Nearly all the other officers except ourselves had had considerable experience with the guns and we found it quite advanced. Studying the mechanism and being able to explain the action of it in the various movements is rather difficult. But writing Physics exams for Mr. Tremeer helped me out of the difficulty nicely; the same method used in explaining the working of the telegraph sounder or the dynamo applied there as well - doing it step by step just as each action takes place and thus with reasonable accuracy. That was my first work of that kind since leaving Smithville and it seemed just like starting where I left off. Many times in the last few years I have had work where one of the little things Mr. Tremeer used to tell us, or one of his methods of doing them would help me out splendidly. I often wish I knew his address to be able to tell him so. I wish I had taken more interest in science and mathematics at Smithville, for if I had done so, I would have remembered such useful things as electricity. As it is, the methods of study alone remain. For example, I used to spend hours observing the action of the mechanism in the machine gun and taking it apart, as opposed to the way I used to avoid doing very much work in the laboratory. Well, you must be tired of all this talk about obvious things. My correspondence has been rather light this last week, hence this brief letter. You will hear from me again before long. There is so much to do and see in London that one does very little writing. It is snowing fast to-day. This weather is unusual in England. This address will find me until I send you another. Yours sincerely, D.A.Lane.