LETTERS FROM THE FRONT.
Page 15
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Seasonable Wishes for Our Staff..
"I thought you would like me, as a reader of THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR, to send you a few lines to let you know how things are going_ on with us. I am in the 3rd Cavalry Ammunition Park, and have been out here about four months now. The roads, of course, generally speaking, are pretty bad, especially in Belgium. The main roads in France are a bit better. I am driving a three-ton Straker. There is only one safe strip along the centre of the road. if you go off to either side you are in the mud up to the axle hubs, and a. fine job it is to get out, as you can imagine. It very often means unloading the whole cargo of stuff whatever you have on board, which, as a. rule with us, is ammunition. You can guess what happens when two convoys meet. This particular convoy numbers 30 vehicles, including a travelling workshop. "The weather out here just now is cold and miserable, and this particular part of France, they tell us, is very cold in -winter time. We practically live in our lorries and sleep in them. We have had occasional frosty nights, and radiators are, as a rule, kept empty. Sometimes they are full of a mixture of methylated spirit and water." " Trusting the 'C.M.' is doing well, and wishing you and the staff a happy Christmas and a bright New Year."—Driver C. V. Smith.
A Versatile Driver of the A.S.C., M.T.
"Surely there are not many drivers out here who have had such a varied experience of motor lorries and cars in this country as a close friend of mine. He came out here in charge of a number of lorries, made up of Leylands Baileys, Straker-Squires, Daimlers and Dennises. I have seen him driving the above cars, and also Cominers, Bernas, Lacres, Wolseleys, Thornycrofts, Maudsla.ys, and others.
After a month spent in driving "mixed assorted," he took over a 5-ton Leyland, and spent, so he tells me, a happy month "eyes front" at various places famous in the history of the War. Having trouble with his lorry, he was despatched from headquarters by train, and a week later he arrived at the repair works. -Here he was given a motor-bicycle on convoy work, when, after a few days, he took over a box-type of touring car. To date he has had two open touring cars, and he is now driving a cabriolet. I am wondering what he will finish up on ; he has yet to drive an ambulance, an armoured car and a " caterpillar " I He tells me his lorry driving has improved his handling of a car.—G.L.S.V.