Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

Letter no. 62 Wednesday 23 July

Major. J. H. Massey 6 Palestinian Coy, The Buffs Middle East Forces

My own darling -

Here I am starting a letter to you, but I am in a shocking mood, & can only hope that I shall feel better as I go along. The trouble is that the Brigadier paid a visit today to the barracks & proceeded to be extremely displeased with everything he saw. He is absolutely up to his eyes, still, in peace time ideas, of spit & polish, & expects far too much, but the infuriating part was that he was right up to a point. The cookhouse in particular, & other parts too were pretty filthy. But what he refused to understand was that I am doing my blasted best to run the place with a few Jews, who have no authority at all over the hundreds of British troops who are attached to me, whereas normally, this barracks is occupied & run by a capable infantry Battalion. And it was only last week that I had an interview with him & pointed out that my men were overworked, & that the work itself was suffering, & he was not sympathetic & asked me to put it all down in writing for him to see the G.O.C. His best remark to me today was "Now, don't make any excuses, Massey, or you will go down in my estimation; just get things right." Well, that does not give one much scope for very much more to be said. And he is about 5-4" high. Well if he wants peace time stuff, he shall have it - plenty of whitewash, & brass door knobs brassed up, tables scrubbed white with caustic soda - but it is a darned nuisance.

2. Thursday - 24 July.There was no peace for me yesterday - it was 10.0 o'clock when I finished working & began to write to you - & at 10.30 I had a telephone call, which kept me working for another hour. Today, I have beenat work from 7.0 this morning, until 6.0 o'clock. And at 8.30, the Sgs are giving a smoking concert, to which I, & my officers, have been bidden. It is really remarkable, the way my time passes, & the odd collection of jobs & events which go to make up my day. It seems a funny way for me to be helping to win the war, & to have came all this way, away from you, just to do this. I simply cannot avoid feeling fed up & disgusted at times, having thought of myself for some time now, as being reasonable tough. And so far I haven't seen a German, or a dead man of any kind. But I suppose somebody has to do this job, & I have promised you before that I will never take any active steps to get into the fighting. And it all has the enormous compensation of practically ensuring the certainty of my return to you, complete & unharmed. But I sometimes ask myself am I man or mouse. I hope you never do, my darling. It would have been so easy yesterday to have told that short arsed little runt of a Brigadier that I had not come out here & left my wife, just to keep a barracks clean, & supervise brassing up a cook house, nor was I particularly interested in it. Talking of being tough, my blasted tendons Achilles, have gone again, on account of the PT. The one which was operated on, slightly, the other one much more

3. which is a big nuisance - & rather gives the ha to those silly doctors who talk about imagination. I'm afraid I am too enthusiastic an P.T put too much effort into it, & when they get better again, I shall have to take it all a little more gently. Do you remember that rather unhappy week in the hospital - followed by an extremely ginny week at Patties' - , then another goodby at Beeston Castle Station. It was strange, the way last summer split itself up into sections. And I can easily remember some of the dates exactly, the others pretty near. On April 23 the Bn went to Oulton Park - & you arrived about May 1st. On June 2nd, the Bn went to Liverpool, & I managed to spin out my job on the rear party for another week. I was a week in Liverpool, then 2 weeks in hospital, Tarporley. And then on July 10th the Bn went to N. Ireland, & you came over within another 10 days. And do you remember when that sourpuss matron would not allow me to leave hospital & you rang the doctor & said you had the Adjudants permission, then raing Muriel, spoke to Henry Birch, & said you had the doctors permssion, what a contrast, between another week another week in that place, in a town in which you & I can never be happy - & away together at Patties. I'm afraid, very afraid, that you are right about my hair, darling - it has gone back a bit from the forehead. One or two more snaps which I have to send you, seem to show it, & in a more careful examination of myself, balding my head - a

4. certain way & at a certain angle, it shows alright. I still have any amount of hair, it is always growing very rapidly except in this one palce. But really there is nothing more I can do about it - I wash & oil, & oil & wash, rub & massage. It's not really too bad you know - , I do hope you will not be very fed up. It will probably stay as it is for years now. I will not relax the treatment you have prescribed, & will oil & wash, & rub more & more! I must now go & change,have supper, & then go drink a hell of a lot in the Sgts Mess. Goodnight, sweetest. xxxxx Friday Last night Sgts mess party was really first rate. It was all caused by the fact they have laid a lot of Royal Navy Petty Officers, Coxwains, & so on in the Mess for some weeks, these being off a destroyer which was very badly damaged in the Syria business. The ship is off againtomrrow, this was a farewell party to those R. N people. As you know, my own Sgs are very few, CSM Jack, C. A. M. S Hennings, 2 hardly spend any money at all in the mess, partly because they do not drink much, but mostly because they profess to hang on to their money. But with thse R. N. & also a gang of Marine Sgts who are in the mess too, the total strength is about 35. And the Sgts Mess profit for the quarter way over £50. So the C. S. M proposed this party, to spend £20. I of course, approved. The C. S. M made a very good, but very sentimental speech; the RN

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chief petty officer made a short reply - & at the end, I briskly said thankyou very much on behalf of the officers. The Navy provided a band, piano, drums, & trumpet, there were many songs, & a number of really first class turns by various people. I drank alternate whiskies & beers from 8-30 until 11-30, & was solidly engaged in conversation the whole time. There was an excellent spirit, every body was drunk to a greater or lesser degree, & it was all extremely pleasant, & rather reminded me of the Sgts dance at Warrenpoint, do you remember? The only incident reported to me this morning, seems to have been with my Sgt Labitsch, who as I have told you is a bit shi shi & girlish, especially for a Sgt. Some weeks ago, one navy chap told him that if only he could cook, he would marry him. Well, last night, Labitsch got really drunk, probably for the first time, & an enormous bloody great petty officer made a concentrated pass at him. Labitsch was far too gone to know what was going on, & allowed himself to be cuddled & embraced. Finally, Hemmings decided to intervene & to preserve his purity, from which the p.o. said "Oh he's yours, is he" - so Hemmings took the line of least resistance & said yes he was, & took the besotted Labitsch away, put him to bed. He looked very green & sorry for himself this morning, in a complete dream, & I had to tell him to pull