Here we are, Peter & I, side by side on the settee in the lounge of the Club.  It was his last telephone talk to May, mine is tomorrow.  After that we adjourn for a few days or weeks, adjourn to a place where contact is not possible – only telepathetic.  It may be that I can’t get out tomorrow, in which case you to have a lonely vigil.  Yet I’ll manage it somehow.  You have got guts; its remand & weak of me to tax you so much by telephoning, – yet I can’t resist it.  I’m very fond, you know.

Peter & I part for an interval after this evening, our first real separation.  We dined well here as a sort of ceremony and talked almost entirely of you & May.  A funny pair, you & I & Peter & May too, & Peter & I.  Other blokes seem to be making other kinds of hay.  But they are only half alive.

Oh, business.  I am writing to the Income Tax about the Dependent relatives.  Remember next time you have claims for reduction on :-  (1) child = £50
(2) D.R. = £50
(3) Insce= 10 –(£9-15-0 actually)
Tell the income tax man that, next April.  And send that certificate when Dickie Anne is registered.  Send Birth Certificate to the Paymaster first, Officer i/c Army Pay Officers, Stockton road, Manchester.  Then send it with that form to the Income Tax, or right for a new form if you’ve mislaid the one I sent – easily done.

Nice letter from mother, in which she quotes a card she saw in Bonds:-picture of a spaniel & this verse:-
Please keep my master free from harm
Wherever he may be –
And when this war is over
Bring him safely back to me.
So we can stroll together or share a cosy fire-
Please hear a doggy’s earnest prayer
And grant her heart’s desire.

Not very clever nor subtle, but not at all a bad idea.  Sweet from Mother anyhow.  She also says “I had such a delightful letter from your Betty last week written on the anniversary of your wedding day, bless you both.  Its lovely to know how happy you are, if only more marriages will like it.  We are both going to be very brave & and keep looking forward to a reunion.”

An exceptionally nice person who loves you very much & will be so very proud of Dickie Anne.

Put the Teddy Bear and the cot, & do some plastic surgery, he’s a worthy bear. First you, no first Teddy, then Mack, then – adventure & you.

Peter has just told me that Roger has 7 teeth 7!  Also how he and May, walking back from Communion at Worcester Cathedral, felt mad & May went down a side street & changed all the milk bottles over.

I have a tiny vaccination scab & no ill effects !  Its the fourteenth day, too.  Healthy me.

When I go places how shall I write ?  A little every night, whenever I can ?  That’s the best idea – even on very busy nights, and then send a wodge.

This will arrive on Saturday morning, & I shan’t be telephoning that evening.  Forget the telephone.  Cut the cable if you like.  No, because if Dickie Anne.  But there’ll be a letter on Monday for you, then a goodly pause – paws – ! (Blass us !)

Good old Fitz, & Jack & Uncle Jack !  And although love you.  We can be proud, Dickie-Anne & you & me, of our new job you know.  It’s not a back room job at all.  And I’ve my own beloved men, too, 80 of them.  They’ll look to me for the tone, & they’ll all feel as we do.  Censoring their letters will be hard.  They’re such dears & I’m so proud of them.  And they’ll back me up.

Memories I have, & each of them is not a dead museum piece, but a living token of the future.  Do not fear to make your plans for the future, & always there is Dickie-Anne.  I am there, for all time.  And you have my books, nothing great or remarkable, but us, – the last one anyhow.  The difference between the last & for a second is the measure of the change you have wrought in me.

I can see quite clearly the changed rooms.  Your cot, the pictures & the scent & intimacy of you.  The palette, too.  Paint & draw my dear, if Dickie Anne lets you.

I could write so much, but time is fleeting.  Peter has to get back, & I may as well go with him.  No telephone this evening, but another letter on Monday.  And I’m with you in mind.  Shall we have five minutes together every evening at half past nine ? At half past nine every evening, I’ll be with you, or bedtime ?  half past ten.  Nothing definite, nothing difficult. Just five minutes of quiet contemplation.  Also at bedtime, but that varies.  But him in a crowd, at 10.30 are switch my thoughts to you it is only the loveliness of you that worries me at all in all this.  The rest is a gay, high spirited adventure, all good, or slightly splendid. But its bleak for you & that I feel. So at half past ten we’ll be together for five minutes.

God bless you, dearest one, & bask in their love of your so many friends, & above all, in my love.