FRIEND AL: I am all most to nervous to write Al but anything is better then setting around thinking and besides I want you to know what has came off so as you will know what come off in the case something happens.
Well Al Simple Simon's gone. We don't know if he's dead or alive or what the he--ll and all as we know is that he was here last night and he ain't here today and they hasn't nobody seen or heard of him.
Of course Al that isn't all we know neither as we can just about guess what happened. But I have gave my word to not spill nothing about what the boys pulled on him or god knows what Capt. Seeley would do to them.
Well Al I got up this A. M. feeling fine as I had slept better then any time for a wk. and I dreamt about the little gal back home that ain't never seen her daddy or don't know if she's got 1 or not but in my dream she knowed me O. K. as I dreamt I had just got home and Florrie wasn't there to meet me as usual but I rung the bell and the ski jumper let me in and I asked her where Florrie was and she said she had went out somewheres with little Al so I was going out and look for them but the Swede says the baby is here if you want to see her and I asked her what baby and she says why your new little baby girl.
So then I heard a baby crying somewheres in the house and I went in the bed rm. and this little mite jumped right up out of bed and all of a sudden she was 3 yrs. old instead of a mo. and she come running to me and hollered daddy. So then I grabbed her up and we begin danceing around but all of a sudden it was I and Florrie that was danceing together and little Al and the little gal was danceing around us and then I woke up Al and found I was still in this he--ll hole but the dream was so happy that I was still feeling good over it yet and besides it looked like the sun had forgot it was in France and was going to shine for a while.
Well pretty soon along come Corp. Evans and called me to 1 side and asked me what I knew about Simon. So I says what about him. So Corp. Evans says he is missing and they hasn't nobody saw him since last night. So I says I didn't know nothing about him but if anything had happened to him they was a lot of birds in this Co. that ought to pay for it. So Corp. Evans asked me what was I driveing at and I started in to tell him about Alcock and Brady and them kidding this poor bird to death and Corp. Evans says yes he knew all about that and the best thing to do was to shut up about it as it would get everybody in bad. He says "Wait a couple days any way and maybe he will show up O. K. and then they won't be no sence in spilling all this stuff." So I says all right I would wait a couple days but these birds ought to get theirs if something serious has happened and if he don't show up by that time I won't make no promise to spill all I know. So Corp. Evans says I didn't half to make no promise as he would spill the beans himself if Simon isn't O. K.
Well Al of course all the boys had heard the news by the time I got to talk to them and they's 2 or 3 of them that feels pretty sick over it and no wonder and the bird that feels the sickest is Alcock and here is why. Well it seems like yesterday while I was telling all the boys about the news from home Simon was giveing Alcock a ear full of that junk Brady had been slipping him about Souvenir Joe and Simon asked Alcock if he thought they was still any of them souvenirs worth going after out in them shell holes. So Alcock says of course they must be as some of the holes was made new since we been here. But Alcock told him that if he was him he wouldn't waist no time collecting the insides of German shells as the Germans was so hard up for mettle and etc. now days that the shells they was sending over was about 1/2 full of cheese and stuff that wouldn't keep. So Alcock says to him "What you ought to go after is a Saxon because you can bet that Souvenir Joe didn't get none and if you would get 1 all the boys would begin calling you Souvenir Simon instead of Simple Simon and you would make Souvenir Joe look like a dud."
Well Al Simon didn't know a Saxon from a hang nail so he asked Alcock what they looked like and Alcock told him to never mind as he couldn't help from knowing 1 if he ever seen it so then Simon asked him where they was libel to be and Alcock told him probably over in some of the shell holes near the German trench.
That's what come off yesterday wile I was busy telling everybody about the little gal as you can bet I would of put Simon wise had I of been in on it and now Al he's gone and they don't nobody know what's became of him but they's a lot of us that's got a pretty good idear and as I say they's 2 or 3 feels pretty sick and one a specially. But I guess at that they don't no one feel no worse then me though they can't nobody say I am to blame for what's happened but still in all I might of interfered because I am the only 1 of them that has got a heart Al and the only reason Alcock and Brady is so sick now is that they are scared to death of what will happen to them if they get found out. Because their smartness won't get them nothing up in front of the Court Marshall as he has seen to many birds just like them.
Well Al I am on post duty tonight and maybe you don't know what that means. Well old pal its no Elks carnivle at no time and just think what it will be tonight with your ears straining for a cry from out there. And if the cry comes Al they won't only be the 1 thing to do and I will be the 1 to do it.