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Date: January 2nd 1915
To
The Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine
From
Robert Combe
Letter

I hope to be able to call on you when the third Canadian contingent gets over in the spring and to become a Life Member. Training conditions here are sublime. I had fifty recruits out the other morning for a route march with the thermometer at 18 below zero. I froze my chin and one cheek. Several of the men had frozen noses and cheeks. We all feel very fit, however, and the cold is most invigorating. We are all very anxious to get over. Many men like myself have not been home for nine or ten years, while others have not even seen "the old country". We expect to concentrate at Regina or Winnipeg any day now, and after a short course there, hope to embark. I have a Lieutenancy in the 95th Saskatchewan Rifles. I have been trying to get back for a visit to the old country for two or three years, but being a married man now it is not so easy to pick up one's traps and march. My wife has never been in Scotland, and one of the things she is most anxious to see is "the old School". I hope it will come up to my boastful accounts. I just notice one of my old class in the first list of volunteers - Hugh F. Mackenzie, Glasgow. I hope I shall meet many more and that we have a chance to have a little reunion - preferably at Potsdam.