2nd Lt Aleck A. MacKinlay

December 12, 1915

I am finally back on my feet after several days being down with some sort of cold or flu; terrible chills and a hacking cough. Had two days of confusion running around London trying to figure out my transport to France and confirming the details of my deployment. It seems the army is quite good at moving large groups of men to the front, but getting a single replacement pilot to his assigned post throws the whole system into a tizzie. Finagling that two weeks on leave apparently bunged things up a bit. I would have been wiser to just stay at No.5 Training and transfer out with the other graduate officer-pilots. Too clever for my own good!

Regardless, after seeing just about every clerk in the War Office and Quartermaster Generals offices in Whitehall I am on now my way. I had some notion that I would be ferrying a replacement aircraft across the channel right to my destination, but the reality is much less romantic or straightforward. I am to be shipped along like so much human-cattle by train to the Dover Marine Station, and any 'ferrying' I do from there will be on an actual ferry across the channel. Hoping for decent accommodations in Dover tonight ... have seen too many faces today and need some private time to settle myself.