"ODESSA,
"_June 24th, 1917._

"DEAREST, DEAREST AMY,
"Eve's letter came yesterday about Jim, and though I start at seven
to-morrow morning for Reni, I must write to you, dear, before I go.
Though what one can say I don't know. One sees these awful doings
all round one, but it strikes right home when one thinks of _Jim_.
Thank God he is still with us. The dear, dear boy! I suppose he is
home by now. And anyhow he won't be going out again for some time.
We are all learning much from this war, and I know ---- will say it
is all our own faults, but I am not sure that the theory that it is
part of the long struggle between good and evil does not appeal
more to my mind. We are just here in it, and whatever we suffer and
whatever we lose, it is for the right we are standing.... It is all
terrible and awful, and I don't believe we can disentangle it all
in our minds just now. The only thing is just to go on doing one's
bit.... Miss Henderson is taking home with her to-day a Serb
officer, quite blind, shot right through behind his eyes, to place
him somewhere where he can be trained. I heard of him just after I
had read Eve's letter, and I nearly cried. He wasn't just a case at
that minute, with my thoughts full of Jim. Dear old Jim! Give him
my love, and tell him I'm _proud of him_. And how splendidly the
regiment did, and how they suffered!

"Ever your loving sister,
"ELSIE MAUD INGLIS."