Airgraph
1021 DOCKS OPERATING COY R.E.   A.P.O. 5145

Dearest Heart :
We have moved- hence two days without writing,- and now live in a stubble field between vineyards, clustered in little groups under olive trees, in nice little holes. H/Q is again a tattered caravanserai. There are donkeys in the neighbouring fields who bray at reveille, 0500 hrs. We’re well up country now and very gay and camouflaged.

The company did well in the show, and commendations and kind words abound. Details later. Still no inward mail and no telegrams or cables. So one waits and wonders. Yesterday was your birthday, I wished you many happy returns. Next year may we be together. We’ll have a double birthday party. Oh. Yes, may be a double one anyhow.

Food is good, all canned but the organisation is truly wonderful. Peter is in fine form and has done well, of course. Everyone has except one who has not distinguished himself. You’ll guess who. Our donkey is outside the officer’s mess looking glum. Praps he liked Mussolini. No one else seems to have.

God bless you dearest, I’ll write as often as possible.
Ever your own
David

Airmail
1021 Docks Operating Coy. R.E.  A.P.O. 5145

Dearest Heart:
The first chance of writing for several days. We’ve moved up country, nice and near the Battle area, & that’s meant busy days. But here we are, established in an olive grove on stubble, with vineyards on each side. Little bushes, three foot high, carefully cultivated in rows. Hard ground, very stony and igneous. I’m writing on an army table in the H/Q, my office. A few rubber stamps, bulldog clips, notices and lists pinned on the hessian screen which walls my office & the “Men” on the other side of the tarpaulin. A glass of fresh lemonade by my side- a lemon a day is issued to every man- and the company clustered in little groups under olive trees, ten trees to each sector, one for the Guard, one for Q, two for orderly room and so on.Thank heavens we have no unit Dog.

But a Donkey shares our camp & brays like billio at 0500 when we reveille and take down Mosquito nets. He may be pro fascist which could account for his glumness. This is Italian paper bought in the little shop at Pachino when we were down there. [A sapper has just called out “Bambino bugger-off-o” to a small Sicilian who is cruising hopefully round the camp. The bambino did].

We travelled up here by train, a very interesting journey, a special train and vague but successful. The R.A.F. have been very busy here lately.

1021 seems to have won a hell of a good name. All the higher ups are pleased. The O/C may get something out of it, & he deserves it, I was with him all the time. Allan is recommended for a Majority after six months further operational experience, Peter for a Captaincy & they’ve put me down to be transferred to staff! A jolly idea. My little systems and a voluminous report seems to have blinded them to my many faults. It may come to nowt, of course, but the recommendation is nice. Staff work would be fine & is just what you’ve been asking for. But forget it for now and it’s all sub rosa.

These here parts are much more civilised than the Pachino Peninsular. The Unit Gramophone is playing “I Walked beside you”. We have it tomorrow. After dinner we have a camp sing- song, -in half an hour’s time. My uniform case has come & in it is my typewriter & the few books I brought. Last night I craved reading & read “England under the Stuarts”, until the light failed. And very pleasant it was. One can understand other campaigns being in one. After the light failed we sat quietly in the fast deepening twilight & gazed over the hill north of us, to the battle area, & sat, at peace. Thoughts often far away, comforted by our mutual companionship. If these recommendations go through it’ll break up a charming company. Peter to a new company, me to a super OCTU- often fierce interviews with generals at which I have to satisfy first.  Allan to a new company in due course.  If all this falls through & we remain together it will be a consolation. Little carts & ponies or donkeys are the principal road transport here as in the south. No cars, the army has taken them all but they’re pretty useless. Children ride horses about in the vineyards a lot. We are operating the railways. The Sicilians are definitely pleased we are here & are profoundly respectful. Mussolini they profess to have hated. He’s gone anyhow. A thing of straw. Their grenades and arms are flimsy poor things. We’ve a dump here in the vineyard. There was a battle through it last week. We’ve a pile of their medical supplies too. Useful but flimsy- all cheap. Their Cascara Extra Composta is not nearly as potent as our British Cascara.

I wonder when this will reach you? Two weeks? It may be when my Mother is with you. I hope she’s well enough & don’t overdo it.

Now your affairs. It’s fantastic, but knowing nothing how can I write of it, yet I expect there is a wealth of news & topics to discuss. When cables and letters come we’ll know. I imagine things & dream in my slit trench, on my bed roll, under the stars, dream of you & your home & your life there. I have my dreams. And in all my dreams is you. In my slit trench last night, under my mosquito net, I dreamed of us with two now vague, then vivid children! Very pleasant.

Great Alne cricket? Does it function? We must get that going again. And the Rector, troubled with his wayward flock, & Mrs. Ellen & carefree Joe Court. And how has the village taken to your event, if I am not tempting providence to think of it.

Lockley is as careful, as quiet, as efficient as ever. He makes my bed, puts up the net, puts tin hat one side & revolver the other, and a torch to hand. He has wash basin ready for the morning, towel & tooth water (sterilised) all ready. A good man.

This is a place where we wait for the next move. We keep mild military activity going & siesta them between dinner at noon and three o’clock. The evening passes quickly. We dine at 6 & its dark & all of us is in bed by nine thirty. Up at five, donkey & all.

I saw Ted, on his way up the line to rejoin his unit, infantry. A good man Ted Childs.

Have you the radio going? I expect you get the news & listen with personal interest. We get official news sheets, quite bleak daily from H/Q. Only general headlines. No home news. But I expect Spectators will come in due course. I’d like to read Strategicus on the Sicilian Campaign, and the Times leader on Mussolini’s fall.

How is money panning out. We spend none, none at all, except on Air mail stamps  & cables. Money is quite unnecessary.

It is difficult to think that I am a writer. This life of bustle and men, of decision and system, of problems & then solutions, of camp discipline and guards, has absorbed me for the time being. I’m a bit bloody minded I’m afraid. Sort of masterly. But all will fall off like a Khaki cloak & I’ll be woolly David again. I miss the humanising influence of a woman’s hand. For the child’s sake, if ever we have one, a little perky girl or a dreamy & absent minded boy, for the child’s sake I must not be too masterly. On active service, in camp, near the enemy, one has to give orders and see them obeyed instantly. That is necessary here. But in the home there can be two opinions and it is not necessarily that the Commander’s opinion is the right one as it must be here. So masterliness must be curbed.

It is now Friday morning, the thirtieth. I had to break off last night where the writing changes to morning typing.   A fine fresh morning, its half past seven and we are up, washed, fed and I’m in the office.   Jack and the O.C. are off into town this morning to see if they can trace any mail and especially any cables. There’s a traffic jam outwards, airgraphs and cables are getting choked with this new influx of soldiers, airmail is the quickest home they say.  I’ve sent off miscellaneous airmails and airgraphs and cables, hoping for the best.    They’ll arrive in due course.

We censor letters as we eat breakfast a pile in the middle of the breakfast table.   Most of them throw out a good tough line and enjoy it all.   Cheerful beggers and fond of their wives, if not in every case exclusively so.

Flies are aggravating little wretches.

I find I am better able to stand this climate than the others, maybe a previous acclimatisation helps. They wilt a lot in the morning and early afternoon, I feel beautifully efficient and keen.    I must keep it up when I get home.

If this rather wild recommendation to Staff goes through it will mean an interview Board of Generals at some H/Q place I expect, then Staff College, Octu in excelsis, then a pretty arm-band and Staff Captains pay, and a clean well dressed life in Chateaux, with good dinners and a great deal of chasing about and stooging.   But in many ways its happier this way. Staff is so clean always.   But if any Dickie Annes come along, they’d like the extra money, three and six or five bob a day. But we are being previous. The only certain thing is the satisfaction in getting the recommendation in the field.

I’ll continue on another sheet, because this must be confusing. . . .

I have changed over because the thin paper may not take two sides of paper.

We are very Imperial, cigarette issue is of South African cigarettes, matches, India, cheese, New Zealand, bacon, Australia, fruit in tins, American, oatmeal, Canadian, medical supplies, Italian, and so on. One chap said in his letter this morning “I’d give all Sicily up for an acre of Wapping”.   Viva L’Inglese.

We officers have smart little green leather dictionaries, but I will talk to them in French and blame them for being ignorant.

Cemeteries here are magnificent, great gates and wrought iron, Ave Maria shrines, and lavish sculpture on the graves.  Also many magnificent triumphal arches with nothing either side of them, Fascism summed up.  The people sleep in caves in a horrible Malarial mix-up. The R.A.F. and Jerry, the British, Canadian and American armies advancing, the Wops retreating, have shaken their trust in mankind.    They are returning to their homes now the British are here, and are quite at ease about us. Tommies are brilliant ambassadors, and will give bully beef, biskiti, cigaretti and anything to Sicilians with a very rough hospitality.

The British are quite definitely Herren-Folk, and that is a comment founded on observation here.    It can’t be gainsaid.

The food supplies are quite wonderful, someone has done a magnificent job.    In a combined operation, an assault into hostile territory, opposed, over beaches, one could     expect iron rations only.   But food has come up regularly and cleverly throughout after the first two days.

In another world I recall a walk, several walks, with the perfect wife and the perfect golden dog, beside a quiet stream under an English sky. Those walks we shall have again. For now streams are polluted, flowers are few and exaggerated, insects are vicious and dogs are tired mongrels.   As for the perfect wife, she is waiting at home

I wonder how you have settled down to this lonelier life.   Maybe not as lonely as we thought Joaok is here very well and like all handsome men, slightly sunburned. He is eager for news of his off spring, and they are all eager for news of mine. The O.C. is due at Christmas.

Now to work, and the mail goes off with the post corporal to the Field Post Office, under a lemon tree two miles away.  Our dusty don R takes the corporal on the dusty motor bike. The battle proceeds over the hills and men whistle about their fatigues. Stray Sicilians potter round the camp begging food. They have had a lean time, now they get good supplies, food and medical attention.

God be with you, my love to all our good folk, your mother, my mother, Uncle Jack, Marjorie, my good Christopher. Jim the Jeff, Leonard and his piano, Eleanor, Eileen and her mother, the Hansons, and all.   Write to the Thoms if you have time.

This is the home of history and of art, but not of hygiene.

Bless you, we shall have great times yet, meanwhile me to my soldiering, you to your domesticity.  I’ll be there, and then life will have agin the old rhythm.  (Back to the half pa (Back from page 10)

Bless you dearest heart,
ever. . .
David   XXXX

 

 

                               

 

1021 Docks Operating Company R.E.  A.P.O. 5145

Dearest Heart,
This fine Monday afternoon finds me still parked in our sandy caravanserai on a beach on the south of Sicily, and very well and pleasantly occupied administering for the O.C. This is the first chance I’ve had for five days to write, other than the airgraphs which are in short supply. It goes dark on us at nine at night, plonk, like that, and we have no lighting because both Stukas and mosquitoes would be attracted, so busy days make writing impossible. However, having spent yesterday writing a massive narrative report on our show to wind it up, I have given myself the afternoon off, sent the O.C. and Tommy Heaton, our new subaltern – a grand bloke – off to town, given Peter a job with the messing, and here I am, holding the fort.   Peter is preparing for a bathing parade with the men in half an hour. They had a route march this morning, and have cleaned rifles and siestad since.  They deserve these few days rest, fortunately fallen to us between convoys. It gives me a chance to clean up the organisation generally, too. I’ve all the nice jobs, camp commandant, Adjutant, Q etc. All very matey, O.C. and I in the tarpaulin house.

And you? No news yet from anyone, the lost legion. But we shall hear.  Letters aren’t going out even only airmail, by which means I shall send this. So it has to be fairly short and light. I have postcards for you, but can’t send them. No enclosures allowed.

Today we hear that Mussolini has resigned, and a good thing too. Its not confirmed but our don R saw the mayor of our little town, four miles away, reading a proclamation which he affirms was of Musso’s resignation. Hope we can get him and deal with him as he deserves. Twenty years of artificial pompous and very evil advertisement.    Its all a facade, here one sees how shallow a facade Fascism is. The Sicilians hate him. There are great gateways here and there, splendid design, wrought iron gates, splendid and Imperial, – and nothing behind them. Barrat the Batman in chief has two medals he got for two cigarettes from a local. They are beautiful, high relief, and modern in the best way, heavy copper alloy. The peasant got them by being a soldier and here is the rub, they are for the Tripoli campaign and for the Yugo-Slavian campaign! Splendid medals so cheaply won.    Its all cheap and nasty. And how quickly a show of genuine force, backed by real opinion and real organisation has shaken his newspaper throne. The twirp. Now the Germans!

Yesterday was like old times. There was I at the typewriter, with notes and reports around me, a typist sergeant at another typewriter, typing from dictation while I typed out the fair copy, beautifully laid out and sectionalised. Peter took your place, encouraged with lemon water and vino, and read it through, corrected silly spelling, and ruled margins. All day we slogged till dark and this morning delivered it all to the Colonel, tied with green tape. A jolly show.

                        The natives here and scraggy, lean and hungry and plead for biscuits; we have to drive them off, but they get plenty. Donkeys are thin, goats thin, and everyone is thin. The children are the universal type, though thin. Very gay and cheerful though and impressed by British equipment and largeness. On the roads, dusty narrow rutted tracks in this part, better up towards the line where they are wider, but full of guns and transport going up and down. On the roads you meet the inevitable equipage, a donkey, thin and delicate of feet, a two wheel cart with painted sides, flowers and heads, the ice cream cart style, and two people, man and woman, several children and underneath the dog, trotting along and panting but in their doggy way, happy. Jeeps, trucks, guns, ambulances, and tanks wind out past the equipage with road courtesy. I am sure Germans would sweep the little outfits away, but we just overtake them with a curse, at which they solemnly salute.   Mon dieu, how they salute!

Peter and I sleep side by side, on our camp beds, me on Christophers camp bed. Reveille is at half five and I get up just before and roust around the camp. I’ve got rather terrible-minded, this climate has done me good, I’m at peak efficiency while others wilt.  I’m a hot weather person, must be.

Dickie anne must have done something about it all by now, I do hope all went well. These cables I send are ready made, we have twelve phrases to pick from and can have three for half a crown, so I can’t be very vocative. The first was a free eight and six one, not free, free choice of words. None of those available now. Sundry people off the ship who were likely to be home soon have to telephone you. One, the second officer, is sending you your Mornings at Seven and the book I liked on the voyage.

We are definitely Eighth Army now, which may mean early demobilisation when its over, I hope so! I’ll try. But I’d not be out of this show for anything. The actual invasion was not without its excitement, though quite quiet and orderly. Nice to have been in the first attack into Europe. We have complete air mastery now, and five times a day squadrons, in the plural, of Spitfires, Warhawks and Hurricanes fly over from Malta to the battle, in twelves, compact, low and furious and very very purposeful. Its a grand sight and a grand noise. Lockley has come back from his swim. I’m going this evening after six with the O/C and Peter to gambol. Soon, any day now, we move up country to a Port, where we shall be busy moving into a camp or billets and settling down. My valise has come and I have complete kit, nothing lost which is marvellous considering my things came in four separate sets in four different ships.

Ted Childs has just called, he’s off for a swim now. He’s finished being an A.M.L.O. – army representative on a ship working with docks officer – and is going up to the line tonight to join his unit, infantry. A good fat happy man, droll indeed and damned efficient.  Little David the R.N. boy has returned to Malta with his precious craft.

Cigarettes and chocolate is free and plentiful, and there’s nothing to spend money on except telegrams! Oh yes, in town there’s a little shop where you can buy toys, cissy cheap fountain pens and post cards. I’ve bought you some post cards. I can’t really discuss Dickie Anne, I haven’t met him-her. It must seem odd to you that I don’t know anything about anything so definite as that child, if there is a child. I can’t see how I can be a father, you’re so young anyhow and I’m so far away. But when I get details and a picture I’ll get the hang of it all. The pram is a thing I remember and I can clearly see you pushing it in your tweeds and nice new shoes with Candy bounding busily along, and you talking quite daft to the poor child.

But seriously, these things do go wrong at times and if it does go wrong, please please don’t think I’ll be unhappy. I should be immensely happy with a child, but I don’t know the person, you I do know and you I do love most deeply. So long as you are well and happy and not injured or too unhappy if things have gone wrong, then shall I be content.

A nice disturbance. The camp moves at four a.m. tomorrow, I must organise like hell, and get this off for we are moving into the bush rather and postal facilities may be nil.  So this will have to be nibbled at and finished as I can.

I’ll go and lay on some mass packing!

All in hand, reveille 0230, breakfast 0300, parade 0345, march off 0400.   Whoppee, now I hear the move may be cancelled. Yaripyaroo.

Down for a swim with the O/C.

Typical of him, in a crisis to go swimming. We gave our orders got everyone buzzing, and then went and swam happily. A grand bathe, warm sea, warm evening sun, clear and limpid, and larks galore, leap frog, diving under legs and fun and games. Now the camp is packing, stacks of kit bags, food to take, water and a hundred and one things to see to.

And darkness falls. We have to watch as twilight is very limited.

And does Jim make Cider soon and wear his horrible breeches and singlet?   And the Ellens? My greetings to them, and dear cuddly Marjorie, though no one is so utterly cuddly as you are.  How your child must love being cuddled by you. Heavens, if one had not the supreme privilege of being your husband one would be your child. Or your dog. Anything of yours.

Our journey is a five mile march in full kit, then thirty miles by train, two German, three Italian and one French coach and the rest ammunition wagons (British), on a branch branch line, and then more marching and then lorries we hope. Yahoo. You’d love     this life. Israelites weren’t in it. We are smart too, with clean scrubbed equipment and clean clothes. Eighth Army! Bless us, such poor relations of so rich a family. Candy will be pleased, though.

I’ve got lots of lovely stories about Monty for you later in an ordinary letter when I can write one.

And your mother and the house and my mother? And Uncle Jack and Jack Lawrence? And his summer hat? He’d need it here. And how many chickens have you eaten? And the fruit.  We have a gigantic cantaloupe to eat soon. Mr. Talloch is dealing with it now. The men are filling their water bottles. Lockley is loading my revolver nervously and I watch even more nervously.  And Musso has packed up, heard about us.

Its so dark and I must send you an airgraph. Do write to mother when you hear from me, I can’t write to both of you.  I’ll send her the airgraph.

Peter sends his love and its darker and darker. O.C sends his love and very best wishes. Lockley has come to pack the typewriter. All my fondest love, wife sweetheart and best companion of all.

ever your own…

David. . . XXXX

1021 Docks Operating Company, R.E.
A.P.O. 5145
_ _ _

24th. July 1943

FROM SICILY

Dearest Heart,
Lockley has just unpacked my uniform case and produced with a flourish my typewriter ! So now I am complete ! It travelled alone, or rather with a store ship, and here it is. So you know I’m all right. I have my typer, I need only you and Candy – or perhaps Dickie Anne if he-she is there now, this twenty fourth day of July.

I spend so much time censoring letters and rushing about that I have no time of my own and this letter is being written while I wait for the lorry to go to Town with the mail for the unit and with the returns from pay parade, made in the sandy waste which is our home. We move on Monday to a port, name to be divulged later.

Fine spirits, fine company a la hi-de-ho. No news, just sandy life under a tarpaulin tent. Maybe we shall get a school or an aubergo in our next place, if the R.A.F. have left anything. Otherwise its the camp life again wolf-cubs delight.

One sergeant said in his letter, very charmingly, darling, keep in touch with the stars, for I sleep under them every night. That is a nice thought. Naughty to quote from censoring letters but its so sweet.

Peter has a battered Time of the Singing he found in the library on his ship, which he hawked around. He’s enthusiastic and gay as ever. Matthews, the elderly Uncly subaltern, is absent, sick with a fever, otherwise we are all healthy and very fit, though sandy.

This is a little letter, “slipped in” this evening I hope to get two quiet hours by great strength of mind to write properly to you. This says I love you, I think of you, I am you, and I plan everything with the objective as our reunion. Be happy, draw and paint, play with your child, be well, and God bless you.
Ever your devoted though hurried husband.

P.S, Now for a dusty five mile drive to Town, with the trim square, renaissance church, untouched by the R.A.F. though houses around are bashed to dust, and with the almond blossom. Greetings to Uncle Jack, love to your mother.

1O21 DOCKS OP. COY  R.E.  A.P.O.  5145

Dearest Heart:
Here we are still living the life of a Wolf Cub.  Paradise, sea, sand and impromptu tents, camp cooking and all that.  Censoring hundreds of letters has benumbed my poor brain.  At the moment I am in the throes of vast colourful reports, with sand and charts everywhere.  My typewriter arrived today & the uniform case so all is well.

I can buy wonderful dolls ten bob fully clothed, eyes work.  Also trains and rocking horses. If the need be real I’ll willingly carry it throughout the campaign!  It’s an opportunity.

Donkeys are very lean but carry fat men & plump women with great gallantry.  I bought a very good leather pocket case for 2/ – today, a Bargain!

And have you been & gone and made me a father?  All conversation here in the Mess turns to that & I have a bottle of R.N. Rum to celebrate when we hear.  And are the plums ripening?  And can you cope with the lawn!  I’ll be there to supervise next year.  I’m writing a real letter this afternoon I hope.  This is to send my love and to remind you of one member of the family who is absent.

God Bless you, dearest, and Candy & all the rest of the family.  And Marjorie & Uncle Jack.

I’d like to see a “Spectator”!

David

24 July 1943

Whether or not this will find its way to an aeroplane & thence to the Great Alne postie van I don’t know, is just a gamble. Anyhow it brings my love and if it does beat Dickie Anne all my most deep wishes for a successful show. Maybe Dickie Anne has arrived when this does. Bless him her if so.

                        For myself I am well, happy, busy, brown, full of spirits & elan. I cannot be lonely with your dangerous rival, my section, always with me. They are well & in fine fettle.

                        Although it’s been three weeks since I’ve written any letters I’m quite tongue tied. A quite long letter starts out at the same time as this, by sea though. It’s very hot & the electric fan flutters the paper & moist hands make clear calligraphy difficult. What a tale I’ll have to unfold some day. Yet when we meet it’s questions I’ll be asking you.

                        No letters as yet of course.. But that day will come & what a day. Your past fifty letters make delicious bedtime reading. As for new ones !

                        And the picture I have of Rosemary Cottage, full of treasures, animals & inanimate, is still a living reality ? Chickens, cats, Candy, Mrs Ellen, Jim in his singlet, ripening fruit & evening  ? Bless us all, a lucky man am I ! And that other, all sufficing miracle ? That cable will come, maybe will have come by the time you get this. Oh I’ve got your copy of Mornings at Seven & a friend’s posting it to you. Also, another book you’ll like, about people in many ways like us. Except the man is clever with his hands as I am not.

                        Life is eating, bathing, work, talk, reading, Bridge, food & sleep. All comfortable & luxurious. And time that passes all brings nearer that great meeting. Journeys end in lovers meetings & my journey really is necessary. God be with you, dear heart. I have fine companions, fine health, & fine faith. I also have the finest woman in the  world for mate, bless her

1021 Docks operating coy R.E.  APO 5145

 Dearest Heart:
This is the expected Day. Bless you. It’s also the busiest in my little life. But in the whirl of activity I have this little island of time for you. I’m immensely well and happy and proud of you. I have written and cabled, ready made cable and a real one. No letters have come yet.

Its hot but pleasant, I’m full of verve and fun, so is everyone. You’d love this life, camping on the sands by the blue blue Mediterranean in Sicily. Fascinating places, and the donkeys, cactus hedges and funny pink and white houses. Very renaissance and colourful, very dusty too. Donkeys are gallant but thin.

You’ll soon be your old self, bless you, with a substitute for me. Bless your Mother and Candy & Marjorie & greetings to “Uncle Jack”. He’d love it here, with his hat.

Bless you dearest heart
David

 

1021 Docks op Coy R.E. A.P.O. 5145

Dearest Heart :
This is my first letter since the invasion, the first chance I’ve had.  I’ve sent an airgraph & tomorrow I hope, by influence with the adjutant, to get a cable off.

How to begin.  My love first, for busy though I have been, happily absorbed in this very precious and exhilarating experience always at the back of my mind has been the vision, the presence, the existence of you.  I have been on top of my form all the while, striving exultantly through incidents & events, master of myself, & all by, & by through  & because of you.  And I am amazingly happy & gay & somehow competent, clear headed & sprightly of spirit.  I have not been dolorous, it would be false to say I was.  Yet always it is you or I have with me, you to whom I want to exclaim at that wonder of the British & Canadian soldier, at the future and that has smiled on us all.

As you will have guessed I’m in Sicily.  We had the privilege of taking part in the initial assault on July 10, with the 1^st Canadian division.  I can’t give you the account I’d like to give, but it was quite unexpectedly easy, & the organisation was marvellous.  Fireworks were decorative rather than alarming and everyone was inspired.  Then followed a period of sheer slogging discharge of ships, & after three days I was fetched ashore by the O/C to form a camp and take over admin.  So I am a camp commandant, adjutant, paymaster, quartermaster & everything.  All the officers live on the ships they are discharging, & the O/C & I sit and sleep in a sort of market stall, of a not very successful pair of fruiterers.  We even have a tray of melons, Grapes, & tomatoes on the floor!  Its the hood of a lorry set on bricks on the sand.  It is lashed.  Over that it is a tarpaulin giving an erection looking like a cross between a market stall, an arabs tent & a circus after the manager has bolted with the funds.  Inside we have ten petrol tins full of Chianti, a table of planks on boxes, four camp chairs, & I have my beloved system, bulldog clips on nails, a few files, ink, a Useful Box, a bottle opener, maps of Sicily etc.  Also a lovely set off rubber stamps:-

 With these I can win any war!  So I sit here & write minutes & memos & keep charts & graphs & lists & make returns & get returns & money & devise standing orders & have a fine old time!  I don’t expect this will last long because directly the Colonel arrives, which will be when the battle is over, he’ll not stand for a subaltern doing 2i/c’s work.  However, Clifford wants me & that’s his affair.  He’ll work it out, I do as I am told. Oh, & I censor letters by the ten thousand, & airgraphs.

We are some 200 yards inland from the beach.  In a few days we’ll pack up our tents, have our men ashore, & proceeded to a port where we’ll docks operate in a normal way, & live in houses.  A nice Italian Count’s palazzo for me please.

I’m smoking a pipe.  Cigarettes are free & therefore not worth it!!!  We are all brown.  Its a splendid climate, though the men think its hot.  Its not tropical, torrid & often the there is a sweet westerly breeze.  When the breeze drops at noon its certainly quite hot, shorts & shirt are the order, & my peaked hat.  In the evening longs & sleeves down because of Malaria.  I’ve seen no mosquitoes though.  But there are many bitey insects.  The men sleep in little bivouacs, under groundsheets in holes in the ground.  We have our camp kits in one wing of our stall.  The men in the other wing, on a cargo board on boxes.  We have fighters taking off from nearby to then battle constantly & coming from Malta & Pantelleria.  Squadron after squadron.  Jerry’s bombing he is very harassed, nervous & erratic.  The Ack Ack is beautiful, very colourful.  You’d love it, even though you dislike air raids. These are flights, not raids. None at all for three nights.

By the sea is glorious, as clear as new bath water and jewelled green when you look down into it, & jewel blue when viewed in its entirety.  We bath morning & evening, when I have time that is.  It’s warm & fresh & invigorating.  We bath au naturel.  The men are brown & bleached & in their khaki shorts they look like a lot of lanky boys who have been at the seaside for a month.  Everyone is fit & except for minor casualties & accidents all are sound.  I have never felt more fit or more efficient.

One of my men has been put forward for a mention, Sgt Matthews, Daddy of the section.  He put up a wonderful show.

Yesterday I had occasion to go into the nearest town, where H/Q is established.  But bumpy drive in the lorry along dreadful roads in a fog of red dust, – we can’t blame them, they are only mule tracks & all our MT & tanks & guns are playing hell with them & after this drive, with ten casualties in the back for the base hospital, we arrived.  David came with me, that charming & gallant RN sub who travelled out with me.  He had called for lunch.  I called at H/Q, in a charming house of a Sicilian Count, marble floors, wrought iron balconies, grand stairs & exquisite mantelpieces & domed ceilings.  A delicious house Romeo could have lived there.  Then David & I explored the town, revolvers, loaded, on belts, & trying hard not to look like “swaggering officers”.  The Sicilians are charming & make the Churchill V sign & spit at Mussolini’s name. The troops are dears, courteous, no looting, no swank.  They give the natives bully beef, cigarettes, grin, wave & seem like long lost brothers rather than invading troops.  Some of the younger ones have been silly & done some sniping.  But they don’t last long. The wall is the answer.  The children love the Tommies & prance about and salute very smartly and grin from ear to ear.  Our guns, vehicles, aircraft, ships & uniforms amaze the Sicilians.  At the moment the Jerry Div is being stubborn but after that goes it’ll be over.  Monty said so the other evening on the beach here.  Its rather a responsibility being in the VIII army!  But so far we’ve done very well and 1021 is getting strawberries from Brigade.  Later even Div and Corps might recognise us.  Still, here we are, VIII army & no other.

Barrett, our only batmen here, the rest are on the ships, has just brought me a cup & a bottle of special Chianti: Very nice too.  Wine all day, suits me.  A little at 11o/c, a cup with my lunch, & one after supper is fine.

But back to have this little town.  The first thing I saw was Via Buonarotti Michelangelo, that way around!  The town has a central square with almonds trees in blossom & seats, a fine church, lovely with a sundial on the wall, the rather superb houses, an exchange & a theatre, -all closed.  Then the streets are all straight & at right angles.  Narrow with very narrow pavements.  Every house has its balcony & is flush with the pavement.  No gardens, only court-yards.  Often they have flat roofs. Vines are the fruit and quite usual.  Donkeys and mules are common, dogs quite common & I saw one very Italian tabby cat, a very thin cat, too. Now to mount the guard.

The atmosphere of the town is such that you can stand in the square & people it with Renaissance colour & fashion.  I found exquisite examples of iron work, carving & sculpture.  The RAF has not treated this town too roughly.  Tomorrow I go in again, for the men’s pay, & I’ll explore again.  The smaller houses have no hall, just two rooms down & two up, with arches, with curtains between them.  Large houses have courtyards.  White stone & thick walls & very small or no lower windows.  The town is only half alive, except for British & Canadian troops & officers, but refugees are coming back.  They fled in fear, but return all smiles & friendliness.  Fascism is more talk & bombast than I realized.  The people, especially old men & children are very friendly.  Women just don’t understand & dislike the disturbance anyhow.

The roads hhere are partly hedged with gigantic obscene cactus, vast and of this kind, grotesque shapes.  Vineyards & orchards  run in terraces to the Med, & little carts with donkeys abound.

The prisoners, of whom we have thousands, work on the beach, & are happy and grateful for the wonderful food they get.  They’re poor undersized men, cheap uniforms, horrible cardboard boots & no spirit.  They are like children & the guards help them with the heavier cases & give them cigarettes.

I’ve mounted the guard & the camp is bedding down.  Dusk is brief, its 9.15 & dark.  My Dan R has just come in to show me a bite, he feared a mosquito, but it isn’t.  Its quite harmless.  I give them quinine every other evening.  But this part of the islands not malarial.  I gave so many malaria lectures that they’re all malaria conscious.

The villages are non existent.  The people live in little towns & tramp or donkey ride to work.  There are occasional cottages, hovels of one room donkey has one half, family the other.  In the town the young men, or youths rather wear Marks& Spencer-ish clothes, the girls  Marks& Spencer frocks.

You’d love it here & how I’d love to have you here. You won’t think that because I’m happy & busy & absorbed in my job that I’m not aware of this separation, will you? It’s natural that I should be taken up with my job, it’s all so important to me. And its so very much easier for me than for you, you at home with me gone. All men have enough of the boy in them to like campaigning. The crusaders must have felt the same, once they were away. But I do have always the radiant vision of our reunion & of a life work, peaceful & constructive, shared in all ways with you.

And this Dickie Anne. This is the week wherein it might happen, this miracle. I should get a cable quite quickly now. The one ear cocked for messages, telegraphic or telepathic, from you.  My first prayer is that you will weather the storm all right.  The next that the child will be as you want it, the third the selfish one of glowing fatherhood.

That money side of this job is that I get the same pay as before, plus 1/- a day which was deducted last year for repaying the initial advance, plus 2/-a day field allowance, plus 1/9 a day colonial pay, Sicily being technically a British colony now.  Four pounds a month, that’s the allowance etc, should cover it for me.  So you ought to have enough.  I’d do hope you do.

I had a birthday treat.  We had a large mailbag sealed & sent to be opened on July 1^st!  So I opened it.  It was the full operational plan, maps, dictionaries & all the details of the assault.  “Just what I wanted”.  We told the men the whole plan as we waded through the instructions & they were so very pleased.

This week’s memory.
Back, on our honeymoon, & the nice policeman who let us off over the licence, & my swim, & lying by a breakwater on the beach all warm & sunny, & making love.  And the lunch we had.  And the sleep.  And the cigarette & sand in the hair, & dressing together, man & wife.

This is a lovely evening.  I have a special shielded torch in the tent.  Over the lines are Naval Commandos, resting after the assault.  They are sitting in their burrows & singing very carefully & appreciatively led by a man with a splendid voice.  Stars are plentiful & no aircraft.

Next morning- no after lunch.  A busy morning telling people what to do & writing a report for the O/C.  Now I’m off to the little town to get some money for the troops.  A bumpy dusty road not without interest, if you look for it.

I think so much of you these days, its the expected week.  I’ll have to patient, & to worry would be silly.  You’re so fit & sane a person, & so very lovely.  You’ll be getting the tweed made up soon & the new shoes.  Spend money on clothes so that you are suitably adorned.  If loving and thinking can help I’ll be helping you.  But it will all be stale news by the time you get this.  And Dickie Anne will be a real living entity.  It may squeak even, & look.  What a fortunate child to have you to look at, and Candy!  Two very lovely people.  I mentioned Candy in my cable as you’ll notice.  Hope that gets through, its 8/6 for 25 words, quite dear but worth it for the pleasure it will give you.  Wish I could telephone this evening.

A hot midday, little breeze, but much sun & dust.  A ten-year old Sicilian, very thin as they all are, has just passed with a basket covered with a cloth.  I suspect Bully beef inside it & rations.  Very illegal to give army rations to the civilians.  But soldiers are very soft hearted.  Our sick parade goes to the field dressing station through a vineyard!  They pick & eat as they go hobbling & limping.

I have to get off in the lorry to the post office, Field Cashier & the H/Q.  So fare well for now.  I hope there were let me air mail this.  I have visions & memories & many visions of the future, visions wherein you & your entirely.

Bye Bye dearest.  All is well, I’m happy, Be you happy too.
God bless you.
Ever your own
David

 

APO  5145

Dearest Heart:

Here we go, the first letter from terra firma- another allied success! I am indecently fit and well, brown and hearty, and live in a sort of circus tent made of a tarpaulin and posts and ration boxes, my H/Q. Here I administer, the blue sea fifty yards away. We are all here and all well. Our show went successfully as the old ??? will have told you. Our side is definitely the good one. One is very proud.

And you? Dickie Anne will be coming to stay in two or three days. I shall hope for news. We shall celebrate. I shall be thinking of you very much indeed. My spirit will be with you. I think ordinary letters will start soon, I’ll write tomorrow.

We’ve had our thrills and excitements, but everything has been safe and secure. I have my busy adjutantish life here. Money all right. I’m spending none, nothing to spend it on. A gallon of Chianti costs only ten cigarettes, & they are free. Cantaloupes too, & grapes and rare cheeses.

My love to all of you, Dickie Anne, Marjorie, “Uncle Jack” (I wish he were here he’d love it), Christopher, Candy & all of you. And for you, all the love any husband ever had for a very exceptionally sweet wife. Oh, and get some airgraph forms, they say it’s less than ? each.
God bless you dearest one. Ever-

David

By my side a cup of red wine, also the O/C & a strange little pie-dog, pom – terrier – continental, who has joined us, friendly nature indeed.  My office is a lorry hood, my table four planks, my chair a ration box.  Around me sand & scrub, a very lovely bay of water clear & blue & a considerable amount of sunshine, hot sunshine.  My health is wonderful & despite the heat I feel full of verve and good humour.  I’m the administrative officer, a job I love as it’s very interesting & new.  Peter & Allan & the new officer are in the bay at work, Jack’s out all day & the O/C & I tease & make fun & drink red wine.  We have eight four gallon petrol tins full.

Thereby hangs a tale.  Barrett, the No 1 batman, sallied off in the first day here for shopping.  He found a farm, a poor place, as they all are.  The Farmer was disconsolate, so was his mule, who stood with ears down & one leg up.  Alas, the farmer’s only tractive power was out of commission.  So Barrett ups & acts, all British.  He takes a flint from the hoof, bleeds & cures it & the mule is happy.  So is the farmer.  He sends Barrett back with a bottle of wine, a cheese, five bunches of grapes, three melons, & tomatoes & onions.  Later Barrett took him two tins of Bully Beef, & wine galore is ours !

We’ll live a life of Wolf Cubs delight.  Camp bed under the stars, food cooked on a camp fire, shorts and shirt, and all part of a very wonderfully organized army which, so far, is doing quite well.

Pause to give five cigarettes two a friendly smiley native for a huge cantaloupe, all pink & sweet & juicy inside, – Jack, O/C & I. Jack & I are off for a swim, swimming au naturel, swimming ideal.  We are very brown & shall be more so.  Brown eggs!

Great thrill yesterday, three letters from you !  Posted in England on June 11, 13 & 17, while we were waiting to start.  Gwen & Honor were there & Jack & D. came out, & Chris walked over !  A dear sweet letter.  And you were going to the rehearsal of Mrs. Fenwicks mime.  Soon other letters will come.  Oh, dear I do love you.

But I do want to be honest.  I’m exceedingly happy here & so very busy.  This is the first time I’ve had for writing & I don’t know if it will get off yet awhile.  I love your entirely, but I am full of life & completely occupied, for the first few days of the show actively & and since busy with administration.  Companionship is warm & rich & we are full of the content of much work in a fine cause.

My only worry is if you worry about me !  Yet I think our love, deep as it is, will not prevent your leading a normal occupied life.

Dickie Ann is due within the week !  Of that I think a lot.  I hope you come through your adventure as satisfactorily as we came through ours.  From what I’ve seen I can solemnly assure you that Dickie Anne can be very proud of his or her race.  I am, and I know you are.

Later on, when we leave this sandy seaside life, I’ll explore ancient churches & see treasures of all kinds, you shall hear of them. The natives are so friendly only they refuse pound or ten shilling notes & army paper full shillings, but will sell you a gallon of wine or a sack of grapes for a penny.  The men don’t abuse this simplicity.  They soon dropped the fascist salute & do the victory sign now !  But what a hard life they lead, uncomplaining & only slightly bewildered by invading armies !  Our people are very kind & quite unteutonic, if they behave.  Anyone who tries to be funny-peculiar is dealt with sharply.

Peter & Allan are very gay & frisky, so is Jack and the O/C.  We had a few “incidents” but all is well.

Its nearly dark, we can have no lights, so I have to stop.  It darkens swiftly at 9o/c.  We rise at 5o/c a nice sane life.  I wish you were here.

Jack & I had a heavenly bath this evening, clear warm water, smooth and fresh.

I’ll write again soon.  Tell everyone I’m very fit & happy.  I’ve not even time to write to Mother.  I only heard of this opportunity an hour ago.

Next morning: I had to stop them to dash off to H/Q to wrangle & trade with a cluster of staff captains & when I came back it was too dark despite a brilliant musical comedy moon.  Nights here are sheer velvet & gold.

As I write the O/C and I are having breakfast, its twenty past six, sausage, beans & bacon (tinned) biscuits & tea, & grapes & cantaloupe.

Tell Christopher the bed he slept on at Swansea is now my beloved bed.  Shrapnel has whinged over it, stray flies fly round it, sand is under its feet.  A nice bed, the 2nd nicest bed I know.

The wireless news, of which we get the occasional snatches, has been exciting ever since we left.  You & uncle Jack must have listened with me in your minds.

Montgomery was here,- hands on hips, two cap badges, standing in a Jeep, one foot raised.  His personality is electrifying, his confidence superb & he is so very matter of fact in his explanations of hair raising projects.

So for me, I’m well, busy, happy, brown & my hair is bleaching.  For you ?  Dickie Anne ?  In a week he or she will be “at home” Bless you all.  Candy will help.  Bless Marjorie too, & your mother.  Write to mine & say I’m O.K.  I don’t think I’ll be able to get a letter off to her by this particular mail.  Normal mail should start soon.

I’ll bring you here after the war.  You’ll love it, wilderness though this part is.  I’ll send details of later discoveries such as little churches, monasteries etc.  I really think that there will be no need to exaggerate & adorn my tales – if I can resist that vice of mine, – which only you could condone as you so sweetly do.

Your picture is a great consolation, & has been gazed at many a time & oft.  You are my wife – that is the miracle.  But that you liked it is passing wonderful.  And all this – our two shows, – are both essential to us – to prove ourselves individually – you your womanhood, me my manhood.  Reunited we’ll be so much richer for all this.

Now I must work.  A slice of cantaloupe has cleared my mouth & there are returns to make.

God bless & keep you.  My love to all our friends.

My Dearest:

Another gamble at getting word to you. This is the second air mail effort. Speed some kindly plane! We are all set now & the suppressed excitement is intense, & spirits are steadily soaring. It’s all tremendous. You’ll know all about it by the time this arrives, maybe more than I do.

Last night, under a young moon, three hundred soldiers sat on deck singing quietly & very seriously, each a set of private thoughts. Lewd songs just didn’t appear. We had “Maple leaf”, “Swannie River”, “Apple Tree”, “You are my Sunshine”, “Annie Laurie”, Last war songs & “There’ll always be an England” & “Land of Hope & Glory”. I’ll never be superior about those songs again. The richest experience I’ve ever had.

It’s hot of course. I’ll stop saying that soon. Everyone’s gay and helpful & . . . . . I’ll tell you all later. I think a War Book is indicated. As a “family” expert this is indeed a family affair.

My love to your so very nice Mother, & Marjorie & the Hansons & “Uncle Jack” Hancox & Candy & . . . & DICKIE – ANNE. Oh dear. That child. Has it arrived. Is it dreadful for little you. I pray, & are Candy & it mutually friendly? And have you bought the shoes?

On Sunday mornings I picture Uncle Jack calling & your so busy Mother resolutely carrying on & Candy & you & he enjoying that gaiety & good sense which belongs automatically to his company.

If that book of plays comes one is for Bertha. My love to her & to Muriel Grant & to Eileen. See her? And Mrs Erskine. And Mrs Anderton, a good woman if ever there was one. Also Chip & Bertie Wright & Co.

Before very long I shall be at the end of a cable I hope, & see cable as soon as I can, the first moment.

It’s the same trouble, so much to say, & nothing I can say. Except to reassure you unnecessarily that I have you always in my heart & spirit. I am well, very fit, very busy very happy & very proud of you. Also, I do love you to the limit.