p.

4. affair & eat dinner. And afterwards, I had Ben & Headley & Salamon into my room & we talked until bedtime - local gossip. But I'm afraid that a change seems to have come over me this last week or two. I feel so painfully miserable & hopeless & my brain just thumps round in dreary circles. My private life up to now, has centred entirely around my writing to you & it still does. If it did not, it would have nothing to centre round at all. But even though I sit here for hours in front of my pad, I get so little down on paper - nothing seems to me worth while the telling - except that I love you & think always of your love for me - & that I want to see Max - & that I want to come home. But I cannot just go on, & on & on writing about those things. Perhaps this place has got something to do with it - though I really feel that I like it very much more than the last one. It is certainly less busy & I am in the Mess just with my own officers & nobody else. And they really do bore me & annoy me. And in addition to which they have not much love for me & are rather scared of me. And Salamon, though a decent chap, is very dull & nothing more or less than a regular army sergeant. And then the work is entirely different. Before it was nearly 100% administration & almost more than I could do. Here it all depends on my own energy & initiative. My officers - except Ben - the paragon - & the entire Coy seem bent on as easy & as easy going a time as possible & the maximum amount of time off. Whereas