times we'll have when the war is ended. Every night I invent a new story
of my own celebration of the event, usually, as when I was a kiddie,
just before I fall asleep--only it doesn't seem possible that the war
will ever end.

I hear from the boys very regularly. There's just the chance that I may
get leave to London in the New Year and meet them before they set out. I
always picture you with your heads high in the air. I'm glad to think of
you as proud because of the pain we've made you suffer.

Once again I shall think of you on Papa's birthday. I don't think this
will be the saddest he will have to remember. It might have been if we
three boys had still all been with him. If I were a father, I would
prefer at all costs that my sons should be men. What good comrades we've
always been, and what long years of happy times we have in memory--all
the way down from a little boy in a sailor-suit to Kootenay!

I fell asleep in the midst of this. I've now got to go out and start the
other gun firing. With very much love.

Yours,
CON.




XXV

November 1st, 1916.