Oct 13/16
Dear Mother,-
	Rec'd a couple of letters from you to-day. It was about time as I had not got any from you for over a week. It makes my mouth water to hear about you putting down peaches etc.
	Well we have been on our guns to-day. They are a different type of gun than the eighteen pounder but of course there is the same [principle] to them all and it is not hard learning how to lay them. The shell they fire weighs 35 lbs and is about twice as big as the eighteen pounder. They don't look as big as the eighteen pounder as they are short and stubby but the bore is bigger. It is 4.5 in. in diameter - consequently the name.
	We got paid this morning. It was the lowest yet - one pound
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about four dollars and eighty cents which has to do us for two weeks so you see I hope the postal order is on the way now. I am going to try and get another leave soon. I would not be able to get it for two months yet if I was in the old battery but I am not in the Second Reserve Battery any longer. We had our last meal at 2nd Battery mess room to-night. It was macaroni and cheese. We erected a tent this afternoon and are going to get our meals separate there now. You get better meals when you are in a real battery - also better treatment going over.
	A draft of eighteen pounders - fifteen of them - was called out yesterday to leave for France in a few days. [Broadworth] and
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Gray from the old tent and Carson from the South House are on it. All the first draft of 67th are on it from A to M. I would have been on the next draft which would probably be in a week or two, had I not been put in this new battery. It makes us who were put in the new battery sore that they should beat us over but we will be over soon too as it should not take long to get this new battery into shape. It is fierce how the 67th has been broken up. It was just a [recruiting] depot. [Trent] Bowles is in a hospital having been wounded at the font. Lieut Campbell is somewhere in France. Part of the second draft is somewhere in France, part here,
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Part of the first draft is leaving for France, part staying here and part of both drafts are in these two new 4.5 batteries. Then the 67th battery is still in Toronto but there are very few fellows in it I would know now.
	Have been hoping you would send another parcel but there has been nothing doing. A lot of the fellows get one every two or three weeks.
	I am enclosing a few snaps which a fellow in the tent took. Haven't you taken any this summer which you could send over.
	Guess this is all the news now. With love
		Gordon
P.S. No signs of moving out of here yet and we don't know what is going to be done with us.