This is a partial letter from Private Felton P. Behan to his mother sent from Camp Valcartier which expresses his enthusiasm for getting a “go” and his disdains for unnecessary reviews by the “high and mighty”.

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Signal Corps, QOR
September 19th [1914]

Dear Mother,
We fully intend to bring a German scalp at least a helmet as trophy of the hunt if we ever get a “go” at those Germans, and it seems as if we would soon be on the way. The men were picked on Friday and some of the captains said that we would be in luck on Thursday next, which means we leave here on Tuesday night as we march into Quebec and are going to take more than a day I believe to do it. This seems to be pretty reliable so don’t write again until you hear from me. I will write as often as I can as we move along and let you know how everything is going.

Today (Sunday) we marched down to the review grounds and after service which was pretty short marched in review before some of the high and mighty. They are round here so much that we get quite used to them. We have another review this afternoon I believe which we don’t look forward to a little bit. It seems such an unnecessary thing to do. I understand from our Sergt, that those slips we made out were not handed in for some reason, so you wont be bothered with the payments coming in, however if [remainder of letter is missing.]

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• 19 September 1914 (Valcartier, Quebec)
• 14 October 1914 (Aboard the Tunisia enroute to England)
• Undated (Bustard Camp, Salisbury Plains, England)
• 4 March 1915 (“in the trenches”)

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