"Till They Have Got Kaiser Bill "T. Anderson

(Chermside) Camp 23/6/1916

 

Dear Colina,

Your ever welcome letter to hand it came as a surprise to me to get one from you.  Well Colina I do not know how to start this letter to you.  Just fancy I was going to start it with Well my love that will tells you what to think of her feler (ed?) you noes I is married so I is just got to rite meried man tork like don't you noes so if there be any Dears in this letter it be only mistook for another word.  Well Colina, this soldiers life is no good to a man that loves a warm bed, your no sooner in it than you are out of it and let me tell you they keep you on the hop when they do get you out they give you 5 miles of a run as hard as they will let you go.  They say that they keep a few fowls here, but we never see them.  Well Colina, I only been back from home leave 2 days and I had a dreary ride the last 80 mile in the coach it was raining up and down it took five horses all there time to come down in one day and they had 8 changes of horses so you can see the roads where heavy.  I was glad when I got in the train again.  When you travel 400 miles you get tired of it.  The wife and children are all well.  Vera gave me a book of news to tell Aunty Dolly.  Talk, if she is not talking, she is singing.  Willie can talk like a good one now.  Nell's people think the world of them.  I had hard work to leave them I can tell you Colina, it is a sacrifice for a married man to make to leave them behind.  God knows, we may never meet again.  No one knows.  I know it is war, not a picnic that we are all going to, they all ask me why I have gone.  Well Colina I am not much with the pen but I tried to do my best at a little poetry, which I am sending you.  It is just what I felt like whenever I thought of the poor Australians falling.  We must go, or we would lose our flag, then God help Australia.  It makes me feel like having a fight with every single cold footer, I look at the likes of monkey face Bill Blake, I would like to be behind him when he is talking and grinning.  I bet he would curse the day that the old esquire (ed?) dragged him on this ball of mud.  If all the mad bruits (ed:  brutes?) brains were the strongest dynamite made, he would not have enough to blow his brainless head off.  I bet he will keep his mouth shut if I have to luck to come over to Rushworth before I sail, or he will get more than one of his cold footer mates as got since I left Rushworth I've got no time for them.  I could not talk civil to them without getting wild. Well Colina I think I have just about lost going to Victoria Monday as I've had 13 days home leave and I did not finish my musketry training.  If I had have been back 2 days sooner I would have just had time to finish my musketry training.  I am pretty sure that I am not going as all my mates got their full hit today and I did not, but I am not sorry as I want to go through everything before I sail.  The next unit that goes to Victoria is in 3 or 4 weeks. I may not go yet.  I might leave the machine gun and go in for something else but more than likely I will stick to the machine gun company now that I have been in it for so long.

There are about 200 machine gunners of my company going to (ed:  can't read place name).  They will arrive about Friday in (?).  I will find it a bit lonely after being with them for so long (ed:some words missing due to holes in paper) with them again before they sail.  Well Colina, my hands gets cramped whenever I try to write now.  I sit down to write Doll a long letter (the) other night and I had to cut it short as my hand got that way I could not hold the pen.  Well Colina I think this is all I have to tell you this time.  I will here now conclude.

I am Yours Sincerely

Thos Anderson

Write again my dear old friend

 

Remember me to Dad.  Tell him I am still kicking about on this little ball of mud.

THN Anderson

 

(ed:  Below is the attached poem referred to earlier in the letter)

 

T.H.N.N.

QUEENSLAND

He cannot tell you why he went.  He has no fine heoric word.  He only knows accross the sea the echo of the fight he heard.  He thanks you for no word of praise, for fame and cheer he does not  care.  He'd make hot foot for hell because those German cows aren't playing the game.  He left his wife and darlings who was all the world to him.  The things that used to matter most; he travelled hundreds of weary miles to get his(ed: next line looks like 'his hark on the cost').  

Oh why did he go?  He will not tell those he loves best.  He will not tell what makes him go.  I cannot tell, it's no good to me you will hear him say are Kings, for he is just like any other bloke whose silence hides some splended things; the boys in blue who are so fine will all some day come marching back to yo, still waving our dear old flag.  My dearest loved ones whom I love best, I'll be back with the rest to clasp you once more to my brest, so while out in the west just try do your best let Daddy and the boys do the rest for they will never let the cows rest till they have got Kaiser Bill.

 

T.H.N.A.

QLD

 

Editors note.  I have left all original spellings intact.  Some words were spelt inconsistently throughout the text.  Semi colons are authors own but otherwise I have inserted periods and capitalised following sentences where I have seen that it will make the letter easier to read.