France
31/3/17.

Dear Wilber:-

Your letter of Feby. 18th rec’d some days ago, and I was very glad to hear that you are all so happy and healthy and enjoying the winter sports there which these people in France never see even. I think I would prefer the dry cold of Canada to that of France even if Canada’s is much more severe. At home the houses are built and the clothes made to protect the people properly from the cold, but here the heating in the houses seems to be altogether inadequate, at least this winter it seemed so.

Day before yesterday I came from the trenches, and it was the hottest four days of my life. The only thing I can compare it to at home is a very severe thunder and lightning storm when terrible claps of thunder are cracking continuously quite near you. We had to forsake our ordinary dug-out and get into a funk-hole, i.e. a place about thirty feet underground, a regular mine in fact, where it is impossible for any ordinary shell to penetrate. One shell which burst just at the mouth of the hole put all the candles out, so you see what concussion there is. This place is considered to be one of the hottest in the line just at the present, but we are in hopes that the Hun will fall back while things are not too hot for him.

I have not yet received Ethel's letter, but am looking forward to it. The weather here is quite unsettled yet and this morning the ground is covered with snow. I wish it would clear up and get warm and dry; it has such a depressing effect on one when it is wet and cold. April is here tho' and no doubt it will bring good weather.

You ask for slanguage. I think a person should try to avoid it as much as possible. We unconsciously acquire a lot of slang and other phrases, and when we go among well educated English people who speak perfect English, we are apt to find ourselves conspicuous by the language we use. However, at your age I suppose some is permissible, and I think the "Tommy" has as much or more slang or funny expressions as any class you could find. He picks up French expressions and adopts them into his own language. "Na poo" (short for "il n'y a plus" I suppose), is one of his most common, and he uses it for all occasions. If a man is killed be is "na poo" - no more. If an article cannot be obtained in a store it is "na poo". There are many others. If I got a chance I will send you a funny paper with some in.

With love to all chez-vous.
Alex. Rowat.