OSE WWI Transcriptions from the Archives

27: N. Somerset – Palestine – 14 Jul 1917 Dear Mr Sing,

It’s a very long time since I wrote to you last and it occurs to me that a letter from Palestine might interest you. I have been up here now since March and have seen a good deal of the different parts of our line. I think it a very much overrated country. It is anything but flowing with milk and honey. I cannot [help] feeling that if it had been described as flies and dust it would have been nearer the truth. It is a shade better than the desert as there is at any rate a sparse covering of grass but it’s of very poor quality and flows very thinly and is now very much burnt up by the sun. The heat is not really very bad as the sun is usually tempered by a cool breeze from the sea and that saves us as the sun itself is very hot and we have to wear helmets all day. Since I wrote to you, I have moved about a good deal. I served ten months with Camel transport as Adjutant of a Company. For the greater part of the time, I was on the Canal, but I had two spells on the Western front i.e., against the Sanussi. The first time at Shuska in Upper Egypt for the Bahiriya, and the second time at Alamein about eighty miles west of Alexandria. Last January, however, much to my joy I was sent back to horse transport, and I am now with 247 Coy. A.S.C. [Army Service Corps] 53 rd Divisional train E.E.F. [Egyptian Expeditionary Force] which is my address if you care to write to me at any time. Our job up here is to cart the supplies four our brigade every day from the Divisional Supply Depot to a spot called the Refilling Point where it is taken over by the regimental transport. This is whilst we are stationary. When we are on the move the Company is divided into Baggage and Supply sections to carry the baggage and supplies of our Brigade. I am in command of the Baggage Section and all my animals are Heavy Draught horses. The other section is all mules. Horses don’t do frightfully well up here as the going is heavy and the rations are rather restricted. Mine aren’t looking the pictures they were six months ago at Ismailia. We are roughing it a bit up here, but I do manage to share the only tent in the Company. The men are all in bivouacs and, indeed, most officers are in these parts. I suppose you are still at Winchester. My Wife spends most of her time in that neighbourhood at her father’s house, Greenhill, near Upham. She’d love to see you I am sure if you happened to be bicyclying past there. But when you get this, it will be the vac[ation] and I expect you will be off somewhere for a holiday. However, I hope your letters will be forwarded to you. I should like a holiday in England. It is a year and eight months since I left home and for all I can see it might be just as long again before I am there once more. One gets rather fed up at times. But on the whole, we don’t have a bad time. I have heard no news of St. Edwards for a very long time. I thought I saw the younger Jenner [OSE] in the distance at Alexandria once, but I was not sure. I hope they will publish a list after the war of all the Old Boys who served. Please give my kind regards to Miss Sing.

Always yours, Noel Somerset

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