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Letter No 53
Friday-June 20th
Major J.H. Massey 6 Palestinian Coy, The Buffs Middle East Force
My dearest darling Barbara-
Your 30th letter of March 1st; by sea mail; arrived today & with it one of your hankies, which you had carried went to your has for me, & which you had put some of your scent on for me, & which you had kissed for me. Thank you very much sweetheart it is wonderful & perhaps you can imagine what it has done to me, loving you so much, & missing you so acutely, & being so very sentimental about you. I almost swooned away from nostalgia & longing And you said in your letter that I might have forgotten. Dearie darling, surely you know by now that I am an elephant? In any case I wrote you in my last letter that I was still working - & so I hope you will send me some more because by that time with my [hot?] nose & mouth, this one will be very faint or even entirely gone away. This letter was a test of sea mail against no. 31 by air mail. We both know by now that there is no comparison between the two, but as a matter of interest, the results of the test are:-
no. 30 sent 1 March received 20 June. 3 months & 20 days " [no.] 31. "[sent] 3 "[March] " [received] 21 April. 1 "[month] & 18 "[days]
So that is pretty conclusive, & I could kill myself for using sea mail for those 3-4 weeks in Jan - Feb, & causing you so much misery & worry.
Darling, these two letters both said that you had just had my long 4th letter from the boat & the final one no. 5. And that you had received the parcels. And you sent me a cable to the same effect. And yet you never even said thankyou for the parcels or told me a single word about
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Whether you liked the things or not. As Grannie would have said. You are a funny lady sweetest. I spent so much time in Cairo hunting round for presents for you. I was terribly anxious to find something you would like. I was so excited about these things, & I have been dying to know ever since whether you liked them or not. On reading your 31st letter again, it seems I may be misjudging you, my darling. This letter says, that you are going to send me a cable to clarify the letter position, & then you say "I must also let you know tthe parcels have arrived". Well, your nos. 27 & 28 are still missing, & so perhaps you told me about the parcels in one of these. And I feel these will never arrive now because news was given out that some mails about that time had been lost by enemy action
Sunday, June 22nd. I am up to the eyes in work again & now at 10-30 on Sunday night is the first free minute I have bad since I was interrupted when writing to you on Friday. The main reason is that that blasted little fool Thornton, one of my officers, has gone & really put his foot in it, & will certainly be for a court martial. I will tell you was about it in my next letter - but last night I spent until 11-0 taking a summary of evidence; 17 pages of foolscap; at night have been writing to you. Today I have been to see Col. [Lieuter?] - & also went to Tel Aviv & got some stockings & one set of pants & petticoat for you darling which I will send this week. So I am first going to finish this off & send you the photos. They are U. very as they are
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but I am sending negative print in each case, & you can look at them under a glass & decide which ones you want to have enlarged.
On no. 19. Peter is giving me a kiss, which takes place every night when I go to bed, & always in the left ear - in response to my request for a kissy. No 18 seems to be the same.
No 10 shows that my "oily mop" is still living No 34 - the other one is Jim Headley No 14 - is Ben [Arji?] - not a v. good one. ____________
Marvellous news today - about Russia. what will happen next? I have just heard Churchill - he was grand. I must stop darling - I am President of another Court Martial tomorrow, & must be up bright & very early.
I so hope you like the photos.
All my dearest love & [?] always, my darling
Stany
