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the bed. Oh, darling. My new Jewish Com & C.Q.M.S. are really doing excellently. C Sen Carny at least looks exactly like a sergeant major, but he has an awful lot to learn - & I am glad to say that he realises that too, & is coming along very well. CQMS Labitseh does not look like a soldier at all - more like a girl dressed up, complete with moustache - but he is extremely able & efficient - & I am really very fortunate with both of them. There are priceless stories about my officers, but they are too much for me on paper. I really think that Dickman is mad - & Carsenty is incredibly idle & full of bluff, but is improving a little. Levoutin is now posted to me, on my request; he is a good boy, but has much to learn. Kalk is really doing excellently, & I now like him very much. When he was first commissioned he was a big disappointment, & seemed to get the idea from somewhere that as he was now an officer, he could do as he pleased. He had a rather a lot of rockets plain speaking from me, & a number of extra orderly officer duties, & 36 hours confined in his tent, for bloody impudence - & he showed his spirit & is now very good indeed & a great help to me. Thursday Feb 19th Now darling, I must attend to some of the questions which you asked in your last three
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7/ lovely letters. They were 75, 76 + 78- I have said thank you for them already in an A.G. You were feeling disappointed because you had not heard of me receiving the snaps which you have sent me - + you sent me another copy of the bathing belle one, as that letter had been missing for a time + them came in late. I think you will have had my thanks + remarks about all of them now, except the very first ones of all from the nursing home + that letter was sunk. I have them all stuck in my album + am very fond of them. The bathing one I did have enlarged from the negative + also a normal size one for my pocket book. I wonder are you going to be very sweet + send me some pretty leggy ones? I should love to have them- even though they would upset me dreadfully. I was going to send you some printing paper - but I find that it is strictly forbidden I could not understand for a time why you paid 1/3 for a letter + I only paid 10d- but the explanation is that you pay 1/3 for 1/2 oz, which is 13 1/2 gams- + I pay 10d for 10 grams. So the only question now is why you do not pay 1/ 1 1/2 d Perhaps I pay slightly less because the letters are a darned sight slower + less regular from here to England. Yes, my mother's Xmas cardigan will solve my problem for me, + I therefore release you from knitting one for me , my sweet! I bet you are pretty pleased about that too. But when I do get home + have stopped holding your hand + making love to you every minute of the day + night you shall knit me a pretty cardigan one of some completely non military shape + shade.
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8/ I think that the objection to Max's name is simply ridiculous. Aunt Sarah I should have thought would be more sensible, at her age + with all her relatives. But my mother is just too futile, with her "the boy" business - I think I told you , she even called him David in one letter to me. As far as I remember , I made a fairly sharp reply. And I entirely agree with your sentiments that as she was of so little help while you were having him + has never come to see him , she can jolly well stuff it up, where the monkey put the nuts. I like Max- + Maxie - + it it quite evident that you do too + we shall certainly always call him that, so I think that is what he should be christened. And about his christening, darling, - if I am unsuccessful in my application again, I really do think that you should carry on. He will be a year old by then- + we thought our darling Lisa was pretty grown up, at seven months. I don't know - what do you think. Barbara sweet? it will be rather an empty ceremony without me + Frank probably in N. Ireland + unless you are in Cadnerarvan, Vera will not be there either. On the other hand, the presence of God is of very much more importance than that of the father + the godparents. Anyway, you must do what you think, darling- + if you decide to go ahead with it, you send me a cable telling me the date + the time + I will think of you both with all my heart + soul + feel very sad that I am not with you. And I shall think of our dearest sweet Lisa, too. God bless the darling. No, I have not seen Rex as yet. I keep thinking
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9/ that I will write to him + ask him down here for a week end, but I always shy at it + put it off. It would mean being solidly with him for 2 whole days + having no time to myself at all, to think of you + write to you. With Frank, I did not mind because he is such an interesting + sincere person + I can talk to him about you + he listens intelligently + sympathetically + unselfishly + makes sensible answers in return. But Rex is such a weak minded little man- + I am perfectly certain that if Frank + I had shown a glimmer of interest in girls, when we were in Cairo. Rex would have jumped for joy + led the way. And I shudder to think what he has been up to, since he has been away from our good influence. But I suppose I shall write him sometime. There is something phony about Rex you know. He is always telling good stories about himself as an officer. + about his father as Colonel of the Regiment. And yet in General Order I have seen him referred to as an Emergency Commission, which means a product of an O.C.T.U. or maybe a direct commission from N.C.O. And I had hold of an Army List the other day, which contains only the names of regular & Territorial officers - whereas I am there, Rex does not appear. It seems odd, somehow. I told you in an AG but I must enlarge upon it. Your letter no 10 of Nov 15 [1940 underlined] came 2 days ago. It is really amazing that a letter can kick around & hang together for so long, & still arrive, rather worn but still complete. 15 months on the way! I
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was still very glad to have it, darling. Poor Barbara - you were so miserable & hopeless in those days. Thank God for Maxie - & better communications between the two of us. You talked in that letter about your ma joining up with Aunt Ethel - & in your last p.c. of 2 Feb 42, you are still talking of it. She is an unstable old cow, your Aunt E - why does she not make her mind up & get together with your ma? Peter is becoming funnier & funnier - & also tougher & stronger. I have now moved out of my office tent, because of the bad weather, & have a table in the Orderly Room, when I am inside. Peter usually sits outside or thereabouts. But the very moment I scrape my chair along the ground to get up - he appears, at once, in the doorway. It is really incredible - he is so independent & cheeky, & yet he refuses to allow me out of his sight. And then I often go around the place on a bicycle - & that is his great delight. He just goes frantic with joy, & [ ?] along beside me, laughing like hell, & jumping up & trying to nip me in the leg. When I come to a corner, I pretend to go straight on, & then turn at the last moment, & he goes straight on himself - & then suddenly sees his mistake & comes absolutely whizzing after me, furious with himself, but rather triumphant at still being there; & more or less saying, "you may think yourself smart, but you can't fox me." But he has
