Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

Letter. No. 10. Lieut. J. H. Massey.

Infantry Base Depot. Egypt Tuesday. Dec 17th

My darling sweetheart - I am still in a very pleasant flutter, after the glad & wonderful news of yesterday - that you are well. As I am thinking about how to begin this letter, & as I do start, I am very conscious of the fact that this letter may arrive before you will be somewhat baffled as to exactly what is going on. But you will always be able to gather, from the number of the letter, when this is happening & so when it does, you will have to make due allowance & try & fill in the missing bits yourself, until they arrive. I had not intended to write again until Thursday, when Frank would have arried back with the full text of your cable, or it even might have arrived itself. but after the lifting of the load from my mind, yesterday, I have felt so well, & so comparatively happy today, that I must start again already. It has made a wonderful change for me, & I now walk about the place at twice the pace, & feel good, & say good morning to people. I have thought about you incessantly today, as I always do, but in quite a different way. I keep on saying that I am certain no harm can come to you, & I really do feel that - but still I was very frightened from time to time. But enough of that. It is also such a help to know where you are, & I can begin to imagine probably quite wrongly - what you are doing, & what your life consists of. I wonder how wrong I shall be, when your letter arrive & at last I really know. I feel afraid somehow to put down in this letter what I do imagine, in case, when you get this letter, things are so pleasant for you as I feel they are. You understand what I mean, darling one? But I do feel & hope & pray that your life is interesting & satisfactory, & that you are managing to do things you want to do. And when your letters come, I will tell you if I have been all wrong or nearly right, or what. Perhaps before I finish this & send it off, I shall knowmore about you - I ask & pine to do this. But, until I do, I must carry on & tell you some more

2. about such interesting matters as I have seen & done.

Wednesday. Dec 18th I fell to thinking & dreaming about you last night, & so did not get any further. A massive great fireplace has been rigged up at one side of the arts room tent, & a log fire burns at night. I put myself in front of this & lyed into it & felt very homesick. I then went to bed early, & looked at my photographs, & re-read for the umpteenth time, your three letters to me at Oswestry.

And now about Cairo. A few days after our arrival, we applied for & obtained leave, & decided to make the journey to Cairo - Frank & Rex & myself. We arrived up there very late on Wednesday night, & stayed at the Continental Hotel - : this is an enormous hotel & really a very pleasant one; it is the second best hotel in the city - Shepheds being closed, until Dec 1st. They had special prices for the army, & as we only paid 6/- for bed & breakfast, this seemed very reasonable. But it had a sting in its tail, because drinks & meals & so on, were at the very best London prices - something like L' Apertif, you remember? & so they intended to get it all back that way. So we ate & drank elsewhere & it all worked out quite well. On the Thursday morning we had breakfast - & then set out for the cable office. We enlisted the aid of a dragoman - I will tell you about them later - to gide us there, but he went all wrong, & we nearly had to guide him there ourselves. Then we all sent off cables. I wonder what method you have employed. I sent my first one the expensive way, which is L.C & costs 8/- for 17 words, & about 6d a word for extra words - that is known as the Deffered rate, & is supposed to be delivered in 24 hours. My other ones have been sent N.L.T - night letter telegram - which costs 8/ for 25 words, & about 5d for extra words - & these are supposed to be delivered in 48 hours . We had leave until the Sunday night, & in my innocence I hoped for a reply by then, & so gave you the telegraphic address of the Hotel. I wondered since if this bamboozled you at all. We then wandered about & did some shopping, & had some lunch; with which we had some Egyptian wine at 2/- the bottle. It was not

3. too good - it tasted of what you would imagine mummies would taste of, & it was a medium shade of dull yellow - a rather significant shade. After lunch, we went to the Headquarters, British Troops in Egypt, to find out about wives coming to the country. I was pretty certain by then, that such a thing was quite impossible, but I wanted to be quite certain. We saw a verly pleasant & sympathetic Captain, & he was able to put the lid on it completely. In fact wives & women are being sent away, unless they have a specific job to keep them here. but it does not really matter. These shipping losses of ours are getting a bit too serious now - & you could not possibly risk the journey at the moment. I do wish something more could be done about those losses - it seems so serious, & itmakes you furious when you think of the cowardly & dirty methods employed to bring them about. But, I am always thinking, darling, about how & by what means, & when & how soon, we can be in the same place & together again. On the Friday, it was very hot & lovely & so we went out to the Gazierh Sporting club, which is about two miles outside the city. This was a very wonderful place, & contained a race course, an 18 hole golf course, tennis courts, squash courts, five courts, a large swimming pool, a billiard room, en enormous bar, & restaurant inside & outside. It cost us 3/ for the day, & this included everything except food & drink. Frank & I had a round of golf in the morning - & we both played quite decently with borrowed clubs. Then we had a pleasant omelette & salad lunch, & a bask in the sun, and then a bathe. Drinks were very cheap here, & in the evening we met all sorts of people, & drank so much & for so long, that we missed dinner altogether, & eventually stumbled back to the hotel and went to bed.

4. On the Saturday, we found that whereas we had put in for four days leave, other peole were arriving with five days, & so a telegram was sent to the Adjudant for permission to return on Monday. We then set out on a serious shopping expedition, as we all had many things to buy for ourselves, & Christmas presents too. The shops in Cairo are excellent for most things, & in most cases very much cheaper than in England. I have blessed myself for buying the minimum of stuff at home. All sorts of people are walking about in drill suits for which they paid 5 + 6 guineas at home, & looking as ghastly, & in many cases worse, than you saw me look in mine. I have been to an Indian Tailor in the camp here, had two suits made for 30/- each, & they fit me beautifully, I am very pleased with them. I also bought another pair of shorts, for 8f, where PR's charged 16/6. I also bought two very good open neck shirts, for 8f each, & which the man had made for me in 24 hours. And then my suede shoes had nails popping up all over the place - as soon as one ws hammered down another popped up - which ws tearing all my socks & stockings to pieces - & so I bought a new pair of these - very well made, & with crepe soles for 25/. Rather good don't you think? I then detached myself from the others, & set off by myself to find a present for you, my pretty darling. As I told you in another letter. I had set my heart on finding some really & truly beautiful & pretty & chic pants & petticoats - such as the ones we saw in Shrewsbury that day - & I did think I should be able to do this. I went to about a dozen shops & had all their stock out before me, but it was no use. I was walking along, feeling rather beaten, when I was set on by a dragoman. I think I had better tell you about dragamen now. You probably know vaguely what

5. they - that is guides. but they are special guides & are appointed & receive a licecnsce from the Government. They are supposed to be distinguished for their knowledge, & honesty & energy, propriety, & cleanliness, & mastery of English - & American. But in spite of it all these high sounding qualifications, they are the most tenacious people, & the most unwilling to take "no" for an answer. Every time you leave the hotel, one of them pounces on you & offers to show this & that & everything else - all the time proudly showing you the ocu band they were representing their official status but even though you know exactly where you are going, & are quite determined not to use their services, & you say so nicely from the word go, it usually requires between 50, 100 yds before they give up. However, this one looked rather & pleasant man, & he happened to mention silks, & said that it would be foolish to buy such things at the bigger shops, that I would save money by going with him: so I fell for this & along we went. My dragoman, as they all are, was dressed in long blowing robes down to the ground, a tarluch & carried a good long cane - & he was a big fellow, & spke excellent English. After quite a walk & a great deal of pleasant chat, we arrived at the shops. This was a darlk little place, run by a very refined type of Egyptian, & was quite full of everything - leather bags & things, cloth, all kind of jewellry & many antiques. It was all in darkness, but lights were switched on when I arrived. I explained what I wanted, but it was the wrong kind of shop, & he could only provide pieces of cloth, none of which was suitable even if you were the sort of person to make your own lingerie & things. But he was quite determined that I should buy something - & when he showed me some fancy silks, I knew that I would: After a great deal of looking & wondering, & going