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[Drawn box with address] Lieut J. H. Massey. The Cheshire Regt Infantry Base Depot Egypt 7th Dec 1941 [Drawn box with address]
My darling sweet Barbara - This letter is a special one, as we are allowed to write one sheet, it will be sent air mail, free & delivery is promised for Xmas. Hence the writing & spacing, & it will all be one big paragraph. At themoment, I donot feel like writing at all - I am so utterly miserable & unhappy, still not having heard anything from you at all. This strain of waiting for a cable or a letter or some word from you is nearly becoming too much for me. It is 16 days now since I called you, & ever since then I have not really thought of anything else at all, but a reply from you to say that you are well where you are & what you are doing. If you are having a baby, darling, & that you love me & miss me. Just to know these things, & also to know that you are managing to lead a reasonable happpy & contented life would make all the difference in the world, & would allow me to think of other things for a time & write you happier & more interesting letters. As it is, I'm like this, & I'm sure you would not want me to write what I do not feel. And here am I supposed to be writing you a Christmas letter. God knows what I am supposed to say. I never expected to have to say them to you in a letter & wish such a hell of a distance between the two of us. And we have had such in the past, together with Lisa & your family, 7 last year at Patties, that it will be quite impossible for you or me to be anything else but unhappy, at this time, & very full of very sweet, but very sad memories. But you will know, my darling, that I am thinking of you, very lovingly & very longingly - & also very kindly of your mother & all the rest of you - & remembering all the happiness & sweetness we have had at Christmas time - & thinking of what the future has for us; I am certain the future holds much for you & me, darling & that it will be happiness & excitement & contentment & children. And I shall think very much of Lisa. The sweet pretty darling - as I know you will be doing. I hope you will be with your mother for Christmas - she has always been the one person who has been really appreciative & sympathetic about Lisa, & has understood what her loss has meant to you & to me. It is still very difficult & hard to believe, isn't it, darling. The more I think, the more I know, there never was a sweeter & more lovely child & our loss is simply beyond expression or understanding. I shall never be able to understand why such a thing should have happened. God bless her sweet little soul. When we were in Cairo, & went out to the Pyramid & Sphinx, we had our fortunes told by a man - one of these sand writers. He told Frank that he was loved by several, but that only one who mattered was not his wife. He told Rex that his wife loved him more & more & that he thought she was probably having a baby - that he had been in Egypt before & that there was a lady here wondering if he was here again. He then told me that up to now my fortunes had been very bad indeed, but that from now on they would be good. That I loved only one my wife - & thought of nobody else at all: & that my love was returned in the same way. That you were quite safe & would remain so, that I would come through alright & would be home in eight months. And that after the war, I would be here as a civilian & you would be with me. It all seemed very encouraging & I hope the chap knew something. He certainly seemed to know things you would not expect him to know. Have you received my letter yet, suggesting that we move to S. Africa after the war? I don't expect you have. If I really thought I would be home in eight months I would be very considerably cheered up. One of the worst parts of this business, is that one really cannot see the end at all. There is not definite time or place or anything that you can look forward to - just endless waking & uncertainty. So I think I will pin my faith onto the sand writer for the moment. I now have my photographs out in my tent. On the ship I did not because there were people in the cabin who did not know., & I did not want to tell them. The result was that I did not look at them every day at all they upset me too much. But now I have them out all the time & see them many times a day, & I find them a very great comfort. I have your new one, & the page of Lisa which you gave me - & I also have that case the two of you taken at Joans in September - the one of you & Lisa in the garden at Shipley - & the one of you in your trousers holding up Lisa as a baby in the garden of Foorfield Cottage. And then I have my two enlargements of Lisa at Carter '38 - & I have the old original one of you, you gave me that at Huddersfield - do you remember - & so I have now had it for over six years. I still like it very much, though I did not know you when it was taken. I like the new one very much now, & it gives me a great deal of satisfaction & pleasure. You are a very beautiful & lovely & pretty, my darling no less so & I think moreso than when I first knew you. When I look at your picture, I feel happy & also sick with misery to be so hopelessly awa from you. The picture, is just of your face, ^ it helps a lot to remind me of your eyes, & your mouth, & teeth, which with your tongue are so lovely & gorgeous to kiss. I have so loved kissing you, darling. We used to have such wonderful times, just kissing - didn't you think so? I think that when we come together again, I shall not
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be able to stop kissing you for a very long time. I think so much about kissing you & making love to you, & I want to tell you about that again. But before I do I want you to understand, darling, that that is not by any means at all that I think about. You must know it anyway. But apart from love & sex & attention, which I feel more than ever, & it is a wonderful things between us two, don't you think darling! I feel that I have changed considerably already & in this short time I feel absolutely certain that when we live together again, we shall be even more to each other by which I really mean that I shall be more to you. As I said in another letter, I shall never work too hard again - by which I do not mean that I shall not work hard - but I shall never become so engrossed again. I feel now that we have missed so much because I have taken so little interest in the things in which you are interested. And now I feel very disappointed in me at times - & I do feel disgracefully illiterate & if I read & ignore it. I think so much about these things, they make me a hundred times more anxious to be living with you again. Darling sweetheart. I have so much respect for your brain & intelligence & knowledge, & I feel guilty too, for having frustrated you in your ambitions. When you write to me,my sweetheart will you tell me if I have made you happy, & if I have been kind to you, & if you have felt appreciated & if you love me & how much, & if you look forward to the future with me. I do so much want to hear these things from you. And about love & attraction - & passion. I think so much about this too. I remember all the wonderful, thrilling, happy times we have had together. There have been so many my dearest sweet Barbara, & you always have made me so escstatically happy, and it has always been & I feel sure it always will be, that instant of becoming used to each other, we manage to attain new & more glorious heights. That is how I feel, my darling. There is so much to remember, here by myself, that it is never exhuasted & never can be. And as I think, I glow & thrill with pleasure, & groan with the pain of being away from you, & I think in detail of all the loveliest & most intimate parts of your body, which I known so well & remember so well. It is a strange mixture of agony & excstacy. Words cannot supress my darling, how I feel about you & how I long & pine & pray & wish for the soonest possible renewal of our life together. It is so lonely & dull here & on top of that there is the added misery of not having heard from you. Most of these officers go off into the nearest town & drink & have parties & dance & get hold of cheap women its not being smug, but I just don't want to do these things. The very thought of these cheap women is revolting. If there were some pleasant & amazing people who gave parties, I should like to go. But there are not. And darling, wherever you are, I do hope you are having a reasonable time, have some friends & get about a bit & don't get bored. I do want to hear your news so much, it is infuriating. I feel quite certain there must be letters from you, for me in this country. It is difficult to be patient. And about calling - please do this regularly, & send by 'Night telephone' : Address to Lieutenant Massey, Cheshire Regt. Infantry Base Depot, Egypt. Oh I have been so engrossed writing I forgot what I was going to say at the beginning - it is 7th Dec - five years married. Best wishes to you darling - & to us both - & next year, me must be together again. I have sent a present for you, which should have arrived by the time you get this. So this must end, on Christmas Day, I shall think & think of you, & long for you. Goodbye my sweet beautiful darling Barbara - I send all my deepest love & adoration & all my kisses, love & thoughts, & all of us. Always yours Harry
