Letters from World War II : J.H. Massey

6.

these pros & cons make my head spin. I only hope that before you get this letter, things will have clarified & I shall be able to catch it up with more helpful & intelligent LC.s or A.Gs.

You ask me if I still feel married to you, darling. Goodness me, I most certainly do, though I have never really thought of it as feeling married to you. You reall & truly do control my whole life out here from morning till night & when I go to bed, & when I am in bed, or when I wake up during the night, & in the morning when I lie in bed, think of you before I get up - & when I have my canvas bath too. I love you deeply & furiously & longingly all the time sweetheart, & feel part of you. Yes. I suppose it does amount to feeling very much married to you, but not in the usual way in our way sweetest. And I feel more frightfully passionate & randy about you too darling angel - do you about me? It is agony at times, really & truly & amounts to a positive physical ache. I can remember every tiniest little part of you & oh but I do long for you darling. And I think of all sorts of new ways to make love - I sometimes wonder if you blush, 2,000 miles away.

As you say sweetest - it is hellish for two little passion flowers like us to be separated. I think our passion will be evergreen when we meet again.

About our wireless - I was rather afraid that it would be 100% buggered. I think that that B.A. Birchall must have switched it on when he went to inspect the water pipes etc. & not switched it off again.

I do not know much about their insides as

7.

you know - but I think this would be the result of that. By all means try the insurance - but I think that they would turn it down. But do try. It cost 5 gns.

Now, about Darlington Hall, or munitions. Your last pc. announced your return to Beaconsfield & so I presume that Darlington Hall is off. So what about munitions? Weaning Maxie will put that off for some time, & our other plans will have their affect. But, darling whatever happens it will feel the same as when I wrote before & I do not like the idea at all. I am doing my part & the war has cost you very dear already. By the grace of God, you have had Max safely & you are now well yourself - but I still think that you are not strong enough for such work, that it would knock you up & perhaps do your health permanent harm. I do realise too that things are desperate & that an enormous industrial effort is required if we are going to win in anything like reasonable time. But I do not think that it should fall upon you - I do not think that you could do it for long, without hurting yourself. There was a General Order only today pointing out that wives with children up to 14 yrs would be exempt - & war is not yet 8 months. I know how you feel darling, but please do try to find some other kind of work - which allows you more time to look after Maxie & which will not be such a strain upon you.

About Lisa, darling, & your talk with the girl Jan - there is

8.

of course such a thing as glandular deficiency - that is what Kitty Holman's baby died of. But I do not think for a moment that it was that with Lisa. The specialist told me that the infection was fierce & that it caused this dreadful crust to form continually in her throat & wind pipe & that she could no longer stand up to it. I don't think you should worry, my darling - even if it were glands, it is not hereditary at all - but only accidental.

Poor darling Lisa - I think of her every day. She was a sweetheart & our lovely darling.

I'm going to bed now - God bless you, my dearest beloved Barbara. I love you with all my heart. XX

Friday Oct. 24th. Frank Macarskie walked in on me this morning, to my great surprise - he had just arrived by plane & was leaving again in 3/4 hour. I'm afraid I cannot tell you anything about his future moves. He had written me all about who he had met in Cairo etc. & why he was unable to join me for some leave, but his letter has not reached me yet.

He had managed to cable home & get replies from both his mother & his girl friend & so he was very thankful to be in touch again - even if only by cable. I had asked him to go to the shop in Cairo where I had £1 deposit for the storing of memory beads & see if he could get hold of a garnet ring instead - & he managed to do this & I will be sending it on to you. It is just a plain garnet stone & I quite like it - I hope you will too, darling.

9.

Frank had met various people in Cairo. Eric (Blake) James who after six months on the staff has trebled his pomposity - he had dinner with him once & arranged to meet him again but at the last moment could not face it & rang up & made excuses. He also met Terence Waters just back from Abbysinia & who now imagines himself as a form of Lawrence of that country, & was so far back & pleased with himself. That Frank found him virutually impossible to talk to - in fact, he would hardly speak to Frank. It really is ridiculous - he & Eric should have their heads knocked together. He also met Bob Gentles, who is now a captain, & something in the C.M.P. ie Corps of Military Police. And did I tell you that I had heard that Gordon Dunbury & Tomlinson were dead? This news is confirmed & the reason was - drink. Dreadful isn't it? And what a way in which to meet one's death in mankind - an excess of gin & whiskey - rationed in the U.K. & brought to the M.E. under Royal Navy convoy in invaluable shipping space. I had also heard that John Fox Strangways was riddled with bullets & dead - but apparently only the former is the truth, & he is very much alive in hospital.

And then there was news of Rex - he has just gone to the Staff College at Naifa, so I expect I shall be seeing him. But it really is remarkable - the Staff College is supposed to be reserved for officers of the higher intelligence, ability & promise & we always thought of Red as being pretty muscle bound between the ears. it is no blasted wonder that the British Army muddles through & it take us donkey's years to win a war. It really is so

10.

disheartening, this kind of thing. Of the only other two officers I know who have gone to Staff College - one is a little wimp in my Regt, with a pair of handle bars on hia upper lip & who was so brainless he had to give up trying to be a solicitor & go into the Regular Army. And the other, from a Scotch Regt & who is known in his Bn as a nit wit when, when will they begin to realise that, having decided that the British soldier, man for man, is equal to & superior to the German solider - the main reason for the success of the German Army is superior Staff work - in other words, efficiency & organisation & hard work & that those qualities do not of neccesity go hand in hand with family, money & influence & snobbery & being a good fellow in Mess & being able to talk Regular Army nonsense & knowing how to cover up other people's mistakes (dog doesn't eat dog). Do you know, they still, out here try & stick to the tradition that one does not talk politics in the Mess & one does not listen to foreign news broadcasts. Oh God - but these people make me sick.

But I must calm down - there is so little that I can do about it, worst luck.

What else did Frank tell me? The time was so short, & as it was he kept his plane waiting 20 minutes, they were pretty set up when we arrived. I asked him what he thought about you & Maxie coming out here - he thought that it might be a bit hard on Max, that I should

11.

first of all exhaust all the possibilities of being sent home myself. I suppose that that does in fact seem up the same view. But, in the meantime, there can be no harm done in finding out just what can be done in the other direction & if & when the time comes, & we have found out just what your journey is, then you & I can decide how good or bad it would be for Max. Possibly many things will change during the next month or two which will make us think again - the only things which will need change, except to increase, are my love for you & my longing to be with you & Maxie. The enclosed newspaper cutting caused me a little trouble & I was sent for by the Area Commander to explain myself. The trouble of course was the last sentence. The whole paragraph is a complete misquote of what I actually did say, the last sentence resembles nothing that I said at all. Col Leicester understood very well, because he has suffered himself from this kind of press misrepresentation. But what did make me livid, was the fact that it was the Brigade Major who had dug this up - & two other things lended, which I was equally easily able to explain. He is a bloody man & a bloody fool too. I think he knows by now that I think both of those things of him. This was a deliberate attempt to get me into trouble. But I am being very careful, darling, keeping my feet very dry: but

12.

those [?] are both annoying, or they are such a waste of time & energy.

Sweetheart, leaving you out of it for the moment, I do long to see Maxie. It is difficult for me to say so very much about him, but I drink in all the news & descriptions whicih you give to me in your letters. From your letter & the snaps, he is really marvellous - & thought I cannot see that he looks like Lisa, I can quite believe it. Even so, he looks very much of a body & really enormous for his agel & so strong too. Your last letter informed me that he had taken his first bottle. That's wonderful dalring - if only to get your hair out of that bag. I do miss so much, not being to know him as a bably & him know me & take off his naps & put him on the pot, & pick him up & so on. As you have said, I think too that all these little things form a bond between a baby & its mother & father. But maybe I shall not be too late. And now, I must stop. I am in a far & away better mood today, thank goodness - though I do not know why. Perhaps because I have seen the new moon, & got a new pair of shoes & wished. All my deepest, dearest love, angel sweetest Barbara XX for Maxie Always your own Harry XXXXXX

Letter No. 79. Sunday Oct. 26th

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

My dearest darling Barbar

I do wish I could begin a letter with something exciting or thrilling to tell you. It would be so much better reading for you & would give me so much more pleasure too. But there is nothing at all. I have written five letters so far this month, to the extent of 52 pages & goodness knows what I have written about - I do hope that my letters are still interesting enough. You see here I am now. There is really not one single important thing to tell you about me or about my life - not a single matter which you ought to know & which will make any difference to anything - & yet I shall write from now, 9-0 pm, until I go to bed. I shall probably read odd bits from some of your old letters & look at your photos & in my album & think an awful lot of things about you, past, present, future & talk to Peter a bit, & have a whiskey & smoke some cigarettes - the result will be another evening passed. & several, we shall see how many, pages contributed towards your next letter. I'm not for a moment trying to make my letters to you appear to be a duty, even if they are. I want you to get as much & as many as possible from me - there is nothing else at all which I [wish?] to do. but, darling, they are so much made up of bits & pieces about me & my life - & odds & ends about people & things. And sometimes I wonder, when things are like this, if I would not do just as well to write you one page. - Tell you nothing has happened. I am very well & very lonely & missing you far more than I can possibly tell you in my words - & that I love you desperately & then

2.

I will think & alway will, that you are the most perfect lovely woman in all the world & love to Max & all my love to you. There would be the whole position in a nutshell. And this month, I shall have expended over 60 pages & a great deal of time, in telling you just those things. Oh darling - I do hope you like my letters. For example, I shall have written about two pages on this theme & by the time I have exhausted it. And I have told you nothing at all - except to give you an insight into the workings of my mind from one other angle & not a particularly illuminating one either. It is perhaps silly to write in this way. You apologise for your letters from time to time & accuse yourself of being trivial or boring me. But I am always. [?] a part from the thrilling & exciting parts, interested with & charmed by your letter & very often amused too. And so I can only hope that my chatter is enough to please you - that my letters never disappoint you.

Now, what shall I chatter about tonight, darling? I think I will tell you some more about Peter & my officers - the one is a constant pleasure to me & the others are a constant irritation.

Peter really affords me with the only wholehearted laughs which I get out here. He is such a pricelsess mixture - because in spite of obeing a very independent & strong minded little bugger, even to the extent of being positively disobedient - he cannot bear to see me

3.

go off anywhere without him - & I'm quite sure that all his comings & goings are controlled by the necessity of keeping me in the corner of his eye. Often, when I stride off in some direction or other, I have no idea that he is any where about at all - he comes bounding along beside me with a broad grin all over his face, as much as to say 'oh no you don't' - (my mother could give you the expression to perfection). Yesterday morning, I went off on a bicycle to see the M.O. about half a mile away - & as fast as I went, he kept up - really annoying, while there an alarm went for a fire practice, very much like the air raid "all clear". The poor little chap remembers well the air raids of a few months ago & connects at once each alarm with bombs & A.A. fire & flashes - & away he went under a table: I took him outside & he positively streaked for home, me following on the bike. And he has started two new tricks in the morning now - one to wake me up, which he does by rubbing a very cold & wet nose on mine - & the other to be let out. I have sand fly netting all over windows & the other morning he got up on the table & went straight through this like a circus dog. So I had it replaced with fine wire gauze - he tried the same trick the next morning & literally bounced back off it into the room; he was furious & tried again with the same result after which he leapt onto my bed & dashed at me because I was laughing at him. I hope this does not bore you - but he certainly is a card.

As for my officers - Oh God but they bore me &