Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

6. people who have any real feelings at all, they must see & understand that you - & we - deserve to see each other after more than a year apart - & considering what we have lost - & that I have never seen Max, & you have never had the three of us together. If I am turned down, I promise you solemnly darling, that without doing anything foolish in any shape or form, I shall immediately set to work about being more successful the next time. Oh darling Barbara - I hope you are praying for it to come off, as I am, & that our combined prayers will be answered.

Now, darling, about the enclosed correspondence, I want you please to try & help here, by going to see the Managing Director of the Ottoman Bank in London & talking to him. My letter to the Manager in Jerusalem will explain things to you to a certain extent, but there are certain other points which I could not very well mention in my letter to him. To put it bluntly, the whole thing is a bloody shame, & they should be ashamed of themselves. Barclays & the Anglo-Palestine Banks out here, & all the banks at home, have encouraged their people to join up, & have then made their army pay up to their salaries - & continued their superannuation fund payments for them. The Ottoman Bank out here - (I do not know

7. what they do in England) - have given no encouragement whatsoever to their employees to join up, in spite of urgent appeals for men & recruiting campaigns & so on. And believe it or not - this chap Possah is their only employee in the Army, & they are a large & important Bank in Palestine. That is hard to believe, but Possah assures me that it is the truth. He is a very decent chap - is 30 years of age, & was acting Chief Bookkeeper at their Tel-Aviv branch. Quite apart from his mother's urgent plight of the moment - he has no assurance whatsoever & after 8 years of service - that he will be taken back after the war. I rather feel that their London people will be surprised & shocked that such treatment is being given to one of their employees out here. So darling, I want you to go in & put on a good C.O's act - or Major's wife if you like - & see what you can arrange. Ask for the Managing Director & insist on seeing him. The Regional Manager's letter may have have made a favourable or otherwise decision. Or your visit may be their first news of it. Anyway, the Bank here agreed to pay the mother £2 - per month, ex gratia (a nasty

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way of putting it) - & in Oct they suddenly stopped the monthly payments & offered her £10 down to finish - which she refused & quite rightly so, I think - & the £2 monthly remains stopped. It really is too bad, I think, & I feel strongly about it. The Jews - & the Arabs to a lesser extent - may not be doing any actual fighting, but they definitely are taking the place of British troops & so saving men & shipping etc.

Another hard luck case has concluded successfully today. A chap called Zilberberg was married to a girl who was an illegal immigrant into Palestine & in addition all the marriage papers had been left behind in Germany. So, when he joined the Army he declared himself to be single & so got no Family Allowance. In August, he got moving with the Rabbi & obtained his marriage certificate & so qualified for the Allowance from that date. I found out that his wife was going to have a baby, & was v. poor - & so I put up a case to the Command Paymaster to have the Allowance antedated to his date of entitlement - 11 Nov [40?] & today I had a letter from the C.P. that this is agreed to. So that is another £20 for the wife - quite a nice help at such

9. a time. I make these efforts because I want to & because I believe in their rightfulness - & not because of or with any thought of repayment or reward. But I am just thinking that there would be some justice in it, & if I were to be rewarded by being sent home to you.

I expect you wonder what will be done with me if I am sent home - & so do I. It seems that I should carry with me a certificate that I have been posted home on compassionate grounds - & so that should preclude my being sent abroad somewhere else for some time anyway - & which would, therefore, probably, mean an administration job of some kind. I should certainly like to regain the rank of major, & I should also like some interesting job into which I could put my back. And I should be only too easy & willing to work hard & I'm sure you would want me to - even if it did mean seeing less of you. But I really am going too fast. The main thing is that I want you to know that if I do come home, it is highly unlikely that I should be whisked off again to Russia or some far distant place within a few weeks or even months. It would be nice to get some job where I had authority over B&D! I do wish an A.G. or P.C. would come from you. Your last one was dated Oct 15th - so the latest were

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of you is almost seven weeks ago. Your last letter was Oct 13th too. I don't know whether you are in Noss Mayo or Beaconsfield or where or what you are doing - or how you & Maxie are. And I do like to know, it helps me to [?] my thoughts of you somehow, though somehow, my thoughts & feelings of you are especially clear & vivid in the last few days. I seem to be feeling you & smelling you & hearing you & seeing you. And of course because of my state of mind, I cannot add this with coming home to you, & feels that it is another indication that I really am coming. As I have said before, & I hope, by the time you receive this you will know the result & so if the result is negative, do not feel too sorry for me. It is only hope which keeps me going & if this one finishes , I shall certainly find some other hope to pin my faith to. I do have & adore you so much my darling Barbara & I know it more & more as time goes on, and I miss you more & more too. I fear that my letters increase in brightness in inverse ratio to my realisation of loving you & missing you. But I know & promise you that I shall be superlatively happy when I am with you again, & will not be dull or over serious. I want to be bright & happy & gay but I just do not feel like it. You are all my happiness darling one. All love to you & Maxie XXXXXXH