My Darling Ricky,
You said you never got any love letters from the girls back home, so here I'll send you one from the trenches. All the boys send big kisses and say they miss your big brown eyes. If I had some perfume and lipstick, I'd cover the letter with them and give your mother and father a real start. Hopefully those girls have started paying attention to you now that you've come home a war hero.
The good news is that they're sending me home as well. I can't hear a thing in one ear and I've always got ringing from infections in the other. It's not as brave as being shot like you were, even if you did take that shot in the arse, but I'm glad to be leaving soon.
To tell the truth I really don't want to go home and if it wasn't for Larsen I would take the train somewhere else as soon as I got to Halifax. I'm going to stay for a few months and then go on to Port Williams to see if I can put the worst of this out of my head.
What do you mean by you have the jitters at night like everyone else? I can't see a lively fellow like you having to take pills to calm your nerves. I hope that doesn't happen to me, though I wouldn't mind forgetting some of the things I've seen.
I'll be along to see you in the spring when I can.
Take care,
Robert S. Monroe
YOU ARE READING
Shadows May Fall
Historical FictionWinter, 1917. Dorothy never really thought that war would take her older brother, but like so many others before him, Ian enlisted and departed Canada in khaki, leaving Dorothy to care for the youngest Gaston, Charlie. The return of her employer's s...
