1918/09/16

Melville writes to his mother from a hospital in Manchester, where he has been moved since being wounded in the back and shoulder. He talks about the Y.M.C.A. near the hospital, and updates his family on his recovery. He also gives his thoughts on his experiences in Amiens, and shares a heartwarming story about an encounter with French civilians.

Bank Meadow Hospital
Manchester
Sept 16 1918

Dear Mother,
I am here in Manchester now. This is the third hospital I have been in since I landed in Blighty. The first one was at Alexandra Park, Stockport, the second at North Reddish, and this one is in Manchester proper. It is only about ten minutes walk

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from the center of Manchester and I go down there every day. They have a good military "Y" and it sure is fine. You can get a good meal for 1/6.
They don't give us a great deal to eat here, so we visit the "Y" quite often. I am getting well and my shoulder is almost all healed up, and they are not going to touch the little pieces (of shrapnel at present - in pen) in my back.
The war news looks pretty good just

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now and I wouldn't be surprised to see the war finish any time. If they could only keep Fritz on the move it would not take very long to wind things up. The German soldiers haven't got an awful lot of fight left in them. The infantry surrenders in big bunches, but the machine gunners usually put up a scrap and make it pretty hard going.

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You see a lot of good men among the prisoners but there are a great many pretty sickly looking ones and some kids that don't look to be more than sixteen. The going was pretty hard in the push up around Arras, but down around Amiens it was a walk over in comparison. On the first day, in Amiens, we were in reserve

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and followed up the advance. It was great to see all the prisoners coming out by the thousands. We were going (blacked out) up the main road from Amiens to Roye and we were passing prisoners all the way up. The Canadians alone took over 9,000 prisoners in one day. The Canadians hold the record in advancing

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by going 15 kilos in one day. It beats Fritz's spring record and far surpasses anything the allies have ever done.
At Écourt, St. Quentin, where I got hit, there were a bunch of French civilians. Our battery was the first to get to that particular part and you should have seen the welcome

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they gave us. There were about forty women and three men and they rushed out to meet us waving their arms and crying "comrade, comrade" as loud as they could. They covered us with kisses and when their joy had somewhat subsided, gave us a drink of cocoa and some sort of pancakes. We couldn't stay long

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but went ahead a little bit more and then I got mine and went back a long way.
I don't expect to be here very long and will no doubt be sent to the Canadian Convalescent Hospital at Epsom. I will get ten days leave before going to the depot again.

Love to all,
Melville.

2017.22.157