Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

Letter No. 8 Wednesday - April 22nd. Major J. H. Massey. 6. Palestinian Coy. The Bluffs. m. E. F.

My darling dearest Barbara, My last letter to you told you I was not feeling at my best, since I posted that I have spent two days in bed. I am now feeling much better & taking things easy as it were. The M.O. is quite useless. I wonder have I told you about him before--he is R.A.F.; name of Hardy; & comes from Bradford, which explains much. I think I have had a small dose of flu, but I doubt if the doctor thinks any thing at all. Any way, that is what I am treating myself for. I have now got a bottle of tonic out of him, I lay in bed for breakfast, & I can fully order my own meals through Chamaziki, who has turned out to be rather a good nurse. I expect to be 100% in 3-4 days again. I have been lucky, & had 2 pes from you this week, & your letters 86-7. Your letters make me roll & groan with anguish, my darling, because you are so unhappy & unsettled, & because I want so much from the bottom of my heart, to be with you & Max. wherever you are now, or when this reaches you, Cambridge or Caeruarvan or wherever it is, I do hope you will like it more. You must please try & feel settled, my darling, it is so bad for you to be continually worried & unhappy. Now that I know you have Max & that he is fine as well, I hope that things re not as bad as you make out. and that you are having

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a bad day, & very properly sitting down & getting it off your chest a bit by writing to me. I know the feeling so well, - I'm afraid I often do it to you. It may be a bit selfish, but I don't think so really. We must just write to each other what we feel - & I'm damned if I feel happy, or even really want to, & so there you are.

Your descriptions of Maxie become more & more charming. It is like you to feel heartbroken that I cannot see him - & I do feel more sad & frustrated & helpless than I can tell you, that I shall never have seen him during his first years & there is still no sign of doing so. He does sound to be very like Lisa - & in the snaps of you holding him in the garden, he looks very like the one of Lisa sitting on your knee in the Moorfield Cottage garden. You say that the only [?] you can find is that his mouth is perhaps too small - but you should not worry - I expect it will grow bigger & become exactly the right size for his face. At the moment, it is just made to take in one of your nipples, the darling lucky little chap. If & when I have an interview about compassionate posting, I shall stress as hard as I can about wanting to see Max - I really do think they should make some special allowance for fathers who have never seen a child - & especially so in our case, as we have lost Lisa.

Every time I think of the awful separation, all kinds of thoughts cross my mind, about how I should have resisted it; it is galling to think of it now,

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but I am sure that had I stuck to my transfer, & the compassioante reasons for not being sent away, that soul B.D. would have given in. Blast my ignorance at the time, & the ignorance of all those high ranking fools like Tony Robert, who did not know enough to advise me.

Oh dear, darling - there is no good sailing, is there? I must just do all in my power, & all the time, in order to get home as soon as I can. And hope, that by some means or other, this parting has made a better man of me, & that you, & both of us, will be the gainer in that way. There is no shadow of doubt that for a long time to come I shall be doing all in my power to make up to you for this tragically lost time. The one big enormous thanksgiving is that we clicked on Maxie before I went away. Quite apart from the joy & comfort which he is to you know - how said it would have been to have had to wait such a long time before beginning our family again. See, we have things to be thankful for too. But I now want to say thank you for being sent home to you.

Friday, Apr 24th. In your letter 87 says that you still do not know how much money we have. I feel that I have made the position clear in a letter a few weeks ago, as far as earnings are concerned. But I will put it all down again, & you must mark the envelope of this letter, or make a copy of it for

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your note book, so that you can refer to it.

Major's pay at 28/6 a day - L520. B.C.R.W. 1/4 pay - 160. Tour allowance @ 7/6 a day. 137. L816

The above is all payable to Martins. In addition, I have paid direct to me here, & which you never see -

Colonial allowance @ 3/6 a day L68 Fixed allowance @ 3/6 a day L68 L136

Grand total L952

Pay is taxable. Allowances are not. My colonial allowance began the day I set foot on the M.E. It will stop the day I step on the boat to leave the bloody place.

Fixed allowance is dependent on where I am living - here, I have had it since Sept. 4, all the time in Haifa I did not have it. Income tax does take a most awful crack at

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our money, but we are still quite well off. The A[?] paid me the miserable pittance of L650 - & now we have L952 - L272 of which (the allowances) is free of I.T. It has come hard on us, having to pay so much I.T. all at once - but this is always liable to happen when commission & bonus has been paid. And you did invest the whole L200 - almost 1/2 of which is now being asked for in taxes. And once you have recovered from the shock, we are the gainers, by this delayed action, because the money has been invested already & has commenced to earn dividends.

So do not worry, my darling - we shall still be able to save a little - & we have recovered from an overdraft of L115; & you have put L200 away; & we have no bills at all; & the insurances are still being paid. Our position is really very good for war time. And so long as we have saved some money & are now hanging on to it, I think we do very well. Are you beginning to think yet in terms of a really & truly socialist Britain? Because I am quite sure that that is what you want as much as I do. And therefore, we cannot think about that & at the same time think about how high we can get my salar from the Assn, & how much commission on profile I can earn. Because the more my commission, the higher the profits