I can't tell you what a pleasure your letters are. I only wish I could get some more from anybody, but not a line gets through! I want so much to hear about Bet and her marriage, and to know if the nephews and Charles are safe.
There seems to be the usual winter pause over the greater part of the war area, but round about here, there are the most awful massacres; 550,000 Armenians have been slaughtered in cold blood by the Turks, and with cruelties that pass all telling. One is quite impotent.
I expect to be sent into Persia soon, and meanwhile I hope to join some American missionaries who are helping the refugees. Our ambulances are at last out of the ice at Archangel, and will be here in a fortnight; but we are not to go to Persia for a month. "The Front" is always altering, and we never have any idea where our work will be wanted.
HOMESICK
We are still asking when the war will end, but, of course, no one knows. One gets pretty homesick out here at times, and there was a chance I might have to go back to England for equipment, but that seems off at present.
Your always loving
A. S.
29 December.—I have still got a horrid bad cough, and my big, dull room is depressing. We are all depressed, I am afraid. Being accustomed to have plenty to do, this long wait is maddening.
Whatever Russia may have in store for us in the way of useful work, nothing can exceed the boredom of our first seven weeks here. We are just spoiling for work. I believe it is as bad as an illness to feel like this, and we won't be normal again for some time. Oddly enough, it does affect one's health, and Hilda Wynne and I are both seedy. We are always trying to wire for things, but not a word gets through.