Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

Letter No. 88. Sunday Dec 21st

Major J.H. Massey 6, Palestinian Coy. The Buffs M.E.F.

My own darling sweetheart

I do not know whether I shall manage a very long instalment tonight, or not. I feel reasonably fit & awake now but I have been another enormous long walk today with Saloman, to which turned out to be much longer than we expected as intended & we must have done no less than 25 miles. It is only interesting to go East from this place, which takes us into the mountains, North, South & West are mostly a continuation & extension of a rather dull & flat valley going on to the sea. So [having?] orders to serve doing a dull initial fire both in & out, we had the car takes us to a certain place - & it was only after we had seen the car away that it was realised that a wrong turning had been taken. Soon we set off each armed with a service rifle, a haversack, ration of bacon & marmalade sandwiches. Peter following along. We get some very good brined bacon about 2-3 times a week now, not having seen it at all since I came out here. At 3 o'clock we came to the place we intended to begin training about 20 minutes from home. So we branched off towards the nearest main road - & we were very lucky - at 5.0 pm we hit a minor road, & very tired & foot sore by then, sat down for a smoke & we had only been there two minutes when an Arab bus came along, & took us within 4 miles of home - this was really a miracle because buses, particularly in Arab parts of the country were very few & far between. And two minutes after coming back here, the rain came down in floods. So it was a good day after all. It was a lovely clear warm & sunny day

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the dress was short & a cotton shirt again. This winter weather in this country is really ridiculous - early mornings & evenings & nights are bitterly cold & the daytime is often extremely hot. I get up in woolen underclothes & battle dress & still shiver. - yet at midday I am often in an agony of prickly heat & have to run & change into summer rig. Peter now has a coat made from an old army blanket & he is very pleased with it.

Most of today's walk was over difficult ground at first up & down through olive groves, which are built in terraces on the hillsides & with walls of 3, 4 & 5 feet high - so for 2 miles we climbed walls & jumped of them. The rest of the remainder of the way was along a wadi which is a dry & stony river bed. All the rivers in this country are wadis, except when the heavey rains are actually on - with the exception of the Jordan. And even when we left the wadi from time to time the ground was all rocky & stony & hard going. This is a bloody part of the world, really - it will be wonderful to return to walks along country lanes & through green fields & meadow. This country looks quite grand & romantic but when you get up to any particular part of it, it is just rocky & dirty & stony & barren. And yet it was called a land flowing with milk & honey - it flows with absolutely nothing unless it is worked & watered like hell.

Peter disgraced himself again & at the first shot from my rifle. Made off. It took 3/4 hour

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to find him, as his camouflage is 100% in rocky ground - eventually he was found, shivering, under a rock & again later on the same, when the only way I could make him follow me was to take the sling off my rifle & tie it around his neck. As I think I told you before, he has not got over the air raids in Haifa, & it seems that he never will - its rather pathetic really.

I'm very pleased to hear that you now walk more quickly - you really were too slow before, darling. But I shall now be asking you to do 25 miles in a day - unless with the help of a pony & a lad. To think of such things, makes me long for them, my darling. As often as possible we must get out & walk & explore the dales & get to know them. There will be plenty of wet week ends when we can stay in & over eat & shop & make love too. And in any case, we can make love beautifully in the dales & I do hope we shall. I wonder shall we play any tennis after the war - it would be lovely to have a court of some kind in our garden, I know some people who have - but I cannot stand tennis clubs. The Stevens one was dreadful, quite apart from being a bass affair because the Bowdan was frightfully up tight & just as dreadful. Can you imagine going to a tennis club for the afternoon or evening, taking your racquet, your book & your knitting - & spending most of the time sitting in a camp chair indulging in different & desultory

conversation, maybe clubs are alright, if one just goes there & has one's game and then goes off home again. And you spoke in your last letter about the collection of gramo phone records which we are going to build up. I am looking forward to this too. As soon as we can afford it, I am very anxious to acquire a radio gramophone, with a record self changing gadget. Probably, after the war, all sorts of new radio gear will be coming out, even television - may be coming along on a commercial scale - & so we might be able to get hold of an out of date model at a reasonable price, which would do us as well. It seems we shall use a new radio in any case & all I ask from the gramophone part is that it should have a good [sound ?] & change its own records. And there is always Kenyon at the works, with his 33 1/3 %, less state tax 5%, less 2 1/2 % cash, & pay in 6 months. Monday 22 Dec Darling, this has been a day of days for us, for letters. I had three of your present missing ones, altogether - nos 61, 2 & 3; & my monthly letters from Vera, & an A.G. from Judy. I almost feel that you & I were part of the Cotterell Bond family! Your letters were wonderful, my sweet Barbara, and was a marvellous feeling to read 3 successive letters right off the [ ?] & the fact that they had arrived in the wrong order made no difference at all. I do enjoy & love & appreciate

your letters so very much. They are so beautifully loving & affectionate & sweet & make me feel so happy & content that you love me & need me, & so full of thrilling hope & expectation for the future - they are so interesting & intelligent & sensible & so amusing in many places - so nice & chatty & easy too. You have a wonderful style of writing. Your letters are so much better than mine in every way, I feel - I only hope that mine are good enough for one who writes so well herself. In your most recent letter, received before these last three, you asked me if I did not agree that you & I are completely bound to each other by our love & then bound again by our suffering together over Lisa, & again by this awful parting of course. I agree, my darling. And in one of today's letters you told me about Juliette's troubles - & said that you would take action, violently, if ever I showed signs of having "solutions" out here - please to tell you in every letter that I love you, my sweetest beloved darling - I love you with all my heart & body & soul, & there never can or never will be anyone else for sure. I will tell you all about it. The fact of our darling Lisa dying & being taken away from us does not make me love you any more or have any direct affect on my contancy - but that does not prevent me from feeling that if anything or any body ever did come between us, she & our lovely memory of her would have the effect of pulling us together again. It is rather a religious feeling really - as though the little sweetheart is