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Letter No. 74 Thursday Oct 2nd

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

My own darling sweetheart,

I have not written you a letter since Sept 25
which is a week ago & as you see, this one has been put
off for two days. I can assure you, Barbara darling, that I
am not becoming idle, or losing any interest in writing
to you, or being at all hard up for any thing to say -
far from any of those things. But things have been
happening. First of all, Frank Macaskie telephoned me
on Saturday - from Jerusalem - having had many adventures
& escaped from the Germans. He stayed with us until
Tuesday - but I will tell you all about that later.
The most important thing of all just now, is that I
have decided finally & definitely that I am now going to do
all in my power to be sent home, to you my darling.
I have sent you an Airgraph about it today, & I hope that
by the time you get the letter, I may have sent you
another Airgraph to inform you more exactly what my
chances are. I'm very much afraid darling, that there is
not a great amount of hope - but I intend to try &
go on trying. It is all like this - there is such
a thing as compassionate posting to the U.K. But
the number of officers & men sent is very small
indeed. And so when the time comes to send a
batch, applications are asked for & these are carefully
examined by G.H.Q, the selection is made. I really
do not know who judges the degree of compassion, or
how it is judged - & I am a little afraid that