p.

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