Letter from Roy Bruce to Maud Bruce

We have come
down to this place which you will
quite easily find on the map, some-
where on the Canal , to recuperate
men and horses for a month.
It is still desert, Kantara is
really only a Railway Station, and
at present a large military depot.

Here we get bathing in
the Canal and it is very precious
this time of year.

Recieved two papers and a
small parcel of tobacco & pipe-
cleaners, the other day for which
"mille remerciements", but no
letters, truly letters are strange
birds of passage, I really believe
that spirits carry them round &
drop them occasionally in little

heaps in the desert to be found
by fortunate travellers.

So your mother & Margaret are
off to England ! I have been
expecting that for some time.

I am afraid there is not
much chance of bringing you to
Egypt yet. At the present time no
women at all are allowed to enter Egypt not even officers officers' wives,
so I am afraid we must possess
our souls in patience a little
while longer.

I hear with very great regret
that some of our people are not
doing quite so well in France as
they should be. I do hope the
reports are exaggerated and that
the little reputation we made
at Anzac is not going to be lost
by a lot of ill trained reinforcements.
Poor old Main Body , I am afraid
it is rapidly becoming a thing of

the past. I have only 39 Main
Body men in the Squadron out of
165, and that is about the average
night through.

I read in the Auckland Weekly
and account of a speech given by
Captain Somebody in which he
said the people of N.Z were too
busy money making to realise
exactly what they owed to the
Expeditionary Force . That after
the returned soldier had been
given tea & cakes he was looked
upon as more or less of a
nuisance. Now that is not
quite as it should be, and I
feel sure that comes only
from a lack of knowledge of
the rigours of campaigning and
a lack of appreciation of the
danger element, not only from
shell or rifle fire, but from disease
& climate.

When men live month after
month in hourly expectation of
the possibility of being attacked
from somewhere by something,
or going out themselves to find
something to attack, when
perhaps for weeks at a time they
do not get more than four
hours sleep at night, and
cannot sleep during the day
on account of heat & flies, surely
when those men return to
the peace and prosperity of their
own island they are entitled
to a good deal of consideration
and forbearance. I do not
mean that the continuous
waving of flags and the
singing of the National Anthem
by an excited and hysterical
populace till do them any
good, because it won't, but I
do think this, that if the people of New Zealand would study
military affairs a little closer, spend
a little less time chasing the
infernal or eternal dollar, and
instead of subscribing all their
money for the benefit of our
Allies' (a certain amount is excellent)
they would spend some of it
in forming clubs & recreations
for their returned soldiers,
attractive institutions which
would make the men feel
they were really home, which
would help them to get fit
again to come back here & carry
on to the end, then I am sure
there would be no necessity for
columns in the newspapers heldin
headed "Soldiers Grievances" which
should find no place in our
papers today, and which cast
reflections of a not very pleasant
kind on the people of N.Z. by the
apparent necessity of their
existance.

Populations should realise by
now that the normal condition
of the British Empire at the present
time is war not peace. Peace
is an abnormal condition
unattainable at present and
almost constitutes an ideal.

If you can do anything
with your committees in this
matter, and feel inclined to
rewrite parts of this letter to
make it respectable English &
intelligible to the multitude
(be careful not to exaggerate or
overdo it) you may do so & use
my name with it.

Treat the men who return
to your shores as men, not
children. Make them feel, no
matter who or what they are
that you realise what they have

done and what they are going
to do again. But don't overdo
it. The New Zealander is one
of the most sensitive men man alive.
I have led them for two years
in war, where at odd moments
every man's soul is laid out as
an open book for those who can
read, and I tell you that the
most sensitive plant on this
earth is the soul of the Anzac.
But you mustn't tell him so,
or let him see that you have the
slightest idea that he possesses
a soul or anything else worth
having. That is fatal and
therein lies the failure of the
N.Z. people. You are too material-
istic. Wake up N.Z.

Good by for the present, old girl,
the tank has run dry. Be good and
if you can't etc etc. Kiss Helen for
me & Helen might kiss you for me.
Roy .