Cooper, Ethel – November 1915
1.11.15
My dear Emmie,
… I was so glad to get two letters this week… And they both said you had at last got my letters – they wrote guardedly, but I gather they were the first 20 or so that Mrs Jaeger sent on the first day. The rest of the 52 ought to follow by the next mail. But I fear it will be a long time before this present pile reaches you…
7.11.15
My dear Emmie,
The principle news here is that the rage of the people against the prices of food has risen to a storm… Now we are to get butter, milk and meat cards, so that nobody, rich or poor, can get more than a certain amount – just as it has been with bread for the past year.
… I read today that Lord Kitchener has left England, and we are debating as to where he can be going – the Dardanelles or Egypt?
14.11.15
My dear Emmie,
…The last domestic tragedy is that milk has given out! At least, if you have a baby under 3 years old, or a doctors’ certificate, then you can apply for a ‘milk-card’ and can order it.
30.11.15
My dear Emmie,
I always write on Sunday, but this week it has been put off till Tuesday. On Sunday at 6, I was playing in a hospital for the badly wounded – in the dormitory where I was, there were 100 beds and perhaps 50 or 60 more men wandered in. I like the common soldier here almost as much as I detest the average officer. But I don’t feel as if I could go to that particular lazarette often. They are scarcely human beings any more – just the shattered remnants of men – some with no legs, no arms, half a face gone – it is just appalling and haunts one – there are so many blind, too. And as long as we live, we shall never see the end of it – it is a whole generation of mutilated and ruined men through more than half the world.
