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these pros & cons make my head spin. I only hope that before you get this letter, things will have clarified & I shall be able to catch it up with more helpful & intelligent LC.s or A.Gs.
You ask me if I still feel married to you, darling. Goodness me, I most certainly do, though I have never really thought of it as feeling married to you. You reall & truly do control my whole life out here from morning till night & when I go to bed, & when I am in bed, or when I wake up during the night, & in the morning when I lie in bed, think of you before I get up - & when I have my canvas bath too. I love you deeply & furiously & longingly all the time sweetheart, & feel part of you. Yes. I suppose it does amount to feeling very much married to you, but not in the usual way in our way sweetest. And I feel more frightfully passionate & randy about you too darling angel - do you about me? It is agony at times, really & truly & amounts to a positive physical ache. I can remember every tiniest little part of you & oh but I do long for you darling. And I think of all sorts of new ways to make love - I sometimes wonder if you blush, 2,000 miles away.
As you say sweetest - it is hellish for two little passion flowers like us to be separated. I think our passion will be evergreen when we meet again.
About our wireless - I was rather afraid that it would be 100% buggered. I think that that B.A. Birchall must have switched it on when he went to inspect the water pipes etc. & not switched it off again.
I do not know much about their insides as
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you know - but I think this would be the result of that. By all means try the insurance - but I think that they would turn it down. But do try. It cost 5 gns.
Now, about Darlington Hall, or munitions. Your last pc. announced your return to Beaconsfield & so I presume that Darlington Hall is off. So what about munitions? Weaning Maxie will put that off for some time, & our other plans will have their affect. But, darling whatever happens it will feel the same as when I wrote before & I do not like the idea at all. I am doing my part & the war has cost you very dear already. By the grace of God, you have had Max safely & you are now well yourself - but I still think that you are not strong enough for such work, that it would knock you up & perhaps do your health permanent harm. I do realise too that things are desperate & that an enormous industrial effort is required if we are going to win in anything like reasonable time. But I do not think that it should fall upon you - I do not think that you could do it for long, without hurting yourself. There was a General Order only today pointing out that wives with children up to 14 yrs would be exempt - & war is not yet 8 months. I know how you feel darling, but please do try to find some other kind of work - which allows you more time to look after Maxie & which will not be such a strain upon you.
About Lisa, darling, & your talk with the girl Jan - there is
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of course such a thing as glandular deficiency - that is what Kitty Holman's baby died of. But I do not think for a moment that it was that with Lisa. The specialist told me that the infection was fierce & that it caused this dreadful crust to form continually in her throat & wind pipe & that she could no longer stand up to it. I don't think you should worry, my darling - even if it were glands, it is not hereditary at all - but only accidental.
Poor darling Lisa - I think of her every day. She was a sweetheart & our lovely darling.
I'm going to bed now - God bless you, my dearest beloved Barbara. I love you with all my heart. XX
Friday Oct. 24th. Frank Macarskie walked in on me this morning, to my great surprise - he had just arrived by plane & was leaving again in 3/4 hour. I'm afraid I cannot tell you anything about his future moves. He had written me all about who he had met in Cairo etc. & why he was unable to join me for some leave, but his letter has not reached me yet.
He had managed to cable home & get replies from both his mother & his girl friend & so he was very thankful to be in touch again - even if only by cable. I had asked him to go to the shop in Cairo where I had £1 deposit for the storing of memory beads & see if he could get hold of a garnet ring instead - & he managed to do this & I will be sending it on to you. It is just a plain garnet stone & I quite like it - I hope you will too, darling.
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Frank had met various people in Cairo. Eric (Blake) James who after six months on the staff has trebled his pomposity - he had dinner with him once & arranged to meet him again but at the last moment could not face it & rang up & made excuses. He also met Terence Waters just back from Abbysinia & who now imagines himself as a form of Lawrence of that country, & was so far back & pleased with himself. That Frank found him virutually impossible to talk to - in fact, he would hardly speak to Frank. It really is ridiculous - he & Eric should have their heads knocked together. He also met Bob Gentles, who is now a captain, & something in the C.M.P. ie Corps of Military Police. And did I tell you that I had heard that Gordon Dunbury & Tomlinson were dead? This news is confirmed & the reason was - drink. Dreadful isn't it? And what a way in which to meet one's death in mankind - an excess of gin & whiskey - rationed in the U.K. & brought to the M.E. under Royal Navy convoy in invaluable shipping space. I had also heard that John Fox Strangways was riddled with bullets & dead - but apparently only the former is the truth, & he is very much alive in hospital.
And then there was news of Rex - he has just gone to the Staff College at Naifa, so I expect I shall be seeing him. But it really is remarkable - the Staff College is supposed to be reserved for officers of the higher intelligence, ability & promise & we always thought of Red as being pretty muscle bound between the ears. it is no blasted wonder that the British Army muddles through & it take us donkey's years to win a war. It really is so
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disheartening, this kind of thing. Of the only other two officers I know who have gone to Staff College - one is a little wimp in my Regt, with a pair of handle bars on hia upper lip & who was so brainless he had to give up trying to be a solicitor & go into the Regular Army. And the other, from a Scotch Regt & who is known in his Bn as a nit wit when, when will they begin to realise that, having decided that the British soldier, man for man, is equal to & superior to the German solider - the main reason for the success of the German Army is superior Staff work - in other words, efficiency & organisation & hard work & that those qualities do not of neccesity go hand in hand with family, money & influence & snobbery & being a good fellow in Mess & being able to talk Regular Army nonsense & knowing how to cover up other people's mistakes (dog doesn't eat dog). Do you know, they still, out here try & stick to the tradition that one does not talk politics in the Mess & one does not listen to foreign news broadcasts. Oh God - but these people make me sick.
But I must calm down - there is so little that I can do about it, worst luck.
What else did Frank tell me? The time was so short, & as it was he kept his plane waiting 20 minutes, they were pretty set up when we arrived. I asked him what he thought about you & Maxie coming out here - he thought that it might be a bit hard on Max, that I should
