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4 Oct 55 Peter on board 'Alipore' Mother ______________________________________________________________________________________________

H.M Transport ‘Alipore’

Kamiesh 4 October 1855

My dear Mother

I was up at Camp the day before yesterday and saw Julius. His wound is getting on well and healing but it is slow work.

I am sorry to say he was in anything but good spirits – which is easily accounted for perhaps, but it was not alone from want of society and weakness from eating nothing, but from another reason.

He seemed hurt that you did not think enough of his wound, for in your first letter you said you supposed it was exaggerated and he thought he ought to get a letter from every one by every mail. He had also not seen John for four days which however John could not help.

As to the first, I must say your first letter did not make much of it but while at camp I saw some which would please him better when he sees them. Amongst the rest, one from Mary; another from Honor,* making him out one of the greatest of Britain’s heroes – which although rather rubbish in themselves, please him exceedingly.

They seem to imagine that he led the storming party at the Redan but poor fellow, he had nothing on earth to do with it. He merely happened to be in the trenches at the time of the attack and anxious to see all that was to be seen, jumped on the parapet with the rest of his Regt. to look on.

As he has only been in the trenches 3 or 4 times, if he is such a hero, John will be quite jealous and with reason. But for the unlucky accident which he has met with, I have no doubt he will look over it and permit you to call him everything you like. I should earnestly recommend you to do so as it will make him happy and that is a great thing.

I expect he will come home in about three weeks time, tho’ the Doctor has been annoying him very much by telling him he would not be able to send him.

Do not be at all uneasy. He will be all right again in time. He does not suffer much from pain but, being ill out here is rather different to at home. Whenever I see him I offer to write for him but he does not care to do so. He says they telegraph reporting his health every week and he has nothing else to say. Write often to him for he is very lonely, the more so because when anyone does go to see him he cannot speak much and if he should never receive the letters it is worth the chance.

I do not wish to make you uneasy at home but I wish to represent it to you in the right light. As he gets better, he gets worse i.e. weaker and bad tempered (if I can with propriety use the later expression – but I merely mean to say that every little thing annoys him) but I do not mean to say he gets worse in health as they make him weak to make his wounds heal.

I dined with John on his birthday and was to have met Nat Massey, but at the last moment he sent an excuse to say he could not come and when I went over next morning he had gone on a working party to Balaclava.

Yesterday John dined on board and rode home in the dark. An Officer in the L.T.C.* was walking home the other night and was like myself robbed. He was knocked down with a bludgeon and his watch and about Five Pounds taken. He had unluckily not got his sword which is against orders and so it served him right.

We shall be clear tomorrow but have no idea in what way we shall be employed – of course we hope to come home. We have had a regular row among the men. They say their time is up and the vessel is not fit for sea and demand their discharge. Today they have made a great hole in the long boat to render it useless.

Love to all

Yr affect son

Peter Laurie

PS I never get a letter now but I will willingly give up my share to Julius. Write to him tho’ I fear it will be too late by the time you will get this letter and if you write to me direct to Hanson’s Constantinople.

* Honor – Honor Jeffery

* L.T.C. – Land Transport Corps, formed in 1855 to help the Commissariat overcome the major logistical effort of moving supplies the eight miles from Balaklava harbour to the encampments outside Sevastopol. In 1856, after the end of the Crimean War, it was reorganised as the Military Train