Tout choses ici sont Françaises, à cet Hotel National. It’s twenty to six & at six I take the bath, my – not remarkably possessive that pronoun, chambermaid promises it. So I sit in a Galilee splendid bedroom & write to you. It’s a potently unmoral bedroom. There is a respectable single bed in one corner & a vast chromium plated double bed in the centre of the room ! A springy naughty bed. It’s a naughty hotel. It’s all very useful as copy because I can get the genuine atmosphere of a weekend in Cairo with a Lady without the expense, the sordidity or the bother. For when we, Ian & I arrived in Cairo he said, all hopefully naughty, “As a matter of fact, Alex is coming down.” And we met her of the Alexandria train, & here we are, Ian & his extraordinary Alexandrina Comonoff, Ronnie Derbyshire & his pure respectable ATS cpl & me. Ronnie & I share one room – No 81 & Ian & Alex No 73. Ronnie who is very young & pure is not to know about Ian & Alex ! He’s out with his Norah & we meet at the Mena House at 8o/c for the dinner Dance. I’m as always, contentedly alone. We arrived at 12o/c & met the train & Alex & Ronnie were on it, apart. We all lunched at the St James. Ronnie went France you after his lady’s ATS camp (he’s very unmarried & wholesome) & I’ve packed Ian & Alex back to the hotel, so that Alex could “lie down”. She professed a “Head”. Thus I was free & bought Peters May’s cloth  ̶  it’s been a Load on My Mind for a long time  ̶  & then walked through the teeming colourful & exciting “Musquie” the Bazaar district, & eventually to the famous Groppis. There I had tea & cakes, & walked to the Nile, & went to the very lovely modern All Souls Cathedral & sat there & mused on you & us & Life. I walked on up the Nile & then took a taxi here, & here I am. We meet in the lounge at 7o/c, and off to La Mena. I’m getting all the extraneous parts for a week ending Cairo was a cosmopolitan female, and its the extraneities that matter, the rest is pretty unimportant. Poor Ian, she does lead him a dance & she is tremendously nice to me, which is most funny. She must be 38 or 39 & has the tiredness of 48. She plays professional Poker & Bridge, & there are vague indications of a 20 year old son, a cadet in the Egyptian Navy !!!

                        Ian is not , he’s charmingly naughty & loves everyone to be happy. It’s all very jolly & very useful material.

                        I loved my pottering around Le Caire this afternoon. The sun shone & everything was colourful & the voice of the Klaxon was heard in the Land. Egypt, I should say owes its mystery to the East, its fascination to its History, its fertility to the Nile & it’s Lavatories to Smethwick.

                        A company of the Comèdie Francaise are doing La Nuit d’Octobre at the Opera this evening. I do wish I could get them to go. If I suggest it “Alex” would insist, but poor Ian, he’d be so bored. Still, if she is happy he will be. It’s in his interests. I’ll see. It be better than the dawn at Mena  ̶  without you. The more I am in the indirect company of women, the more you are absent. I’m a very unsatisfactory traveller, I’m so rooted in my interests in one person, my wife ! All the lovely things I saw in the shops and didn’t buy. Anything lovely, I envy it for you. There will be time ! I sighed just then, deeply & spontaneously.

                        Last night’s cocktail party was a great success. Only 10 people, a good pal of tasty morsels to eat, a good line in cocktails, & a wonderful Hostess. Her father was Indian army, retired in 1901 after 40 years & lived on, with a bottle of whiskey a day, for a further thirty years ! Her husband, she is the dead husband sort, was Oil, & her son, whom she never leaves, is Shell ! She is 60 & very tough. Bobby dear is often Aden & she can’t go there, so she going to Colombo for 6 months ! Singapore, Hong Kong, Kobe, Bombay, all are her oysters. She has a Peke, too. Hideous with these jackets. Her remarks were heavenly & I drew her out hard. One was “It doesn’t matter if you are in Calcutta, Suez, Bombay, Kobe or Karachi, you can sit on the Verandah of the Golf Club & imagine you’re in England ! Even the trees look like oaks if you half close your eyes ! So wonderful I always think !” Bless her!

                        And she said, in a story she was telling : “We were in Kuala Lumpur  ̶  Bobby had to go to Bombay, I popped over to Australia so we sent  (the Peke) to my sisters at Calcutta.”

                        Dear dragon. Bobby is 39, unmarried & she adores him.

                        I adore you.

                        She’ll be precious some day.

                        I’ll cable when I really embark, & the next news will be by telephone. It should be 3 weeks at the outside. How does my son Richard fare ? No more colds I hope. You’ll be home by now & Fitz will have seen him. Fitz is a great consolation & we owe him much. (Do we ?)

                        We must be Economical now, except for one week in London Town.

                        What will Dickie say to me ! “Hello !” or “Oh !” or “Bless my heart & soul”

                        in a way I hope to come home up the Clyde, to see & salute “Ilse Craig” again. It was with fairly tense feelings I saw it fade away on the horizon in June 1943. Lovely to see it rise again from the sea !

                      My Bath. Haven’t I babbled, here in Cairo. So many pairs in this hotel I feel very much yours.

Suez

Dearest:

Having you in mind even more than usual I find myself writing daily!  Such stupid letters too- I’m not entirely normal these days. The latest news is that the Reina del Pacifico has decided to turn left at Gibraltar & go off to West Africa, so we’re not using her. There’s the Multan & various others next week, so we’re keeping our eyes and ears open, & if nothing turns up we’ll just have to go Medloc* like everyone else- Holy Medloc! However, come we will, oh yes.

I’ve been considering your Mother’s financial scheme- by passing over money to you she’ll certainly save on income tax- but we’ll have to pay it! However if not having it entitles her to the full Beveridge its businesslike. Put it in War Savings if possible, or I expect there’ll be a loan of some sort launched by the Govt. soon, a Victory Bond Issue or some such. That may be tax free. This American loan makes it inevitable. We’ll work it all out bardin (Arabic- soon) yimkin (Arabic- perhaps)

A comment of Mother’s is that my “motor salesman smart alec” (My italics, not Mother’s) cousin Jack Daniell, is living with Auntie Edie. That mildly spoils our visit- he’s a pleasant bloke but for thirty seven years has made my hackles rise! He was in India & is demobbed, and it seems his wife has done a bunk. So there he is. A nuisance. Perhaps he’ll clear off when we go. He must dislike me equally. The other cousin- Dan- has lost his wife too. Stupid men to have such wives. Or is it the rule and me extraordinarily lucky.

I’ve a feeling the average is less than tragedy- a change which has to be overcome, and far less than our compatibility and natural comradeship which is as a governor to our love, steadying it and controlling it.

There is a chance that for a while we shall be plagued by very well meaning army friends who will descend on us with an expectancy of a welcome out of all proportion to their value. Col. Oram, Barry Coltis, Fox, Cliff Grainger, Hunter, Desmond Smill, Martin Benson, John Trevor, Dan Speller, Channon, the dentist Evans, & sundry sergeants & batmen & odds & sods. Peter Carter will be alright, but we’ll have to avoid a whole gamut of folk who mean very well. I fear it. Defend & protect me.

Last Sunday I spent from 2 to 7 reading Carter’s books on the Tutankhamen discoveries & the trip Ian & I are making to the Museum will be all the more interesting. Henry V is off, so we shan’t have that. If we go Medloc I’ll see it in Alex.

Bye Bye, only a handful of days now. Oh dear!

All my love
Ever-
David

*MEDLOC
WW2 was over. Demobilizated British army’s troops coming from many countries from Mediterranean area had to be transferred to the UK. The R.N. the R.A.F. and the Medloc Trains all worked together to send home thousand of people. The Railways of France and Italy were involved in those trasferrings.
I am an elderly Italian woman. I remember the war time.I read about the journeys of the “Medloc” in late 1945 when many people were moved in and out of Milan for home leave at Christmas. But the Medloc’s History went on till 1955: in Italy tousands of people went home starting from Milan through Villach, Austria, Germany reaching Calais. In Italy, Milan was the big goal for many people. Troops were desembarked in Taranto. The “Adriatic Railway Line” was the only way to reach the Padana Valley, Bologna and Milan in four days. It was an easily way notwhitstanding the destruction caused by the war. There weren’t alternative routes. The others lines from Genoa or from Florence had been seriously damaged: the numerous tunnels could be possibly mined and the high viaducts were destroyed. I find of particular interest the stories of privates and officers relating to their journeys to reach Milan.
In 1948 I went to Milan starting from Florence. The train crossed the still destroyed viaducts of Appennini moving with a terrifying slowness on the tracks which had been setted on big steel cables. Rivers were crossed on pontoon bridges. I believe I saw in the Milan Railway Station some brown cars of a train which now I suppose formed a Medloc train.
From an Amazon Review

HQ 4 DOCKS GROUP RE  MEF

Dearest. . . .

Back in Suez where I belong, sitting in my tent at nine in the evening of the Monday. First I must explain that I learned from Suez whilst I was in Alex that there were many letters for me so when I arrived this evening it was with considerable expectation excitement and anticipation. I carried the bundle about for a bit in the office seeing about things and in the Mess at the bar and then went away and studied them. There were six, of the 7, 10, 12, 17, 18 and 19 of January; one from Momma Rose and one from Momma Anne. So I opened the Momma Anne one first and had seven fits when I found that Richard was, had been, quite ill. So I opened your last one first to see what it was and there was no mention; only how nice he was so I felt better, and then I read them in order and found out about the flu and ear-ache and what a dreadful time he and you had had. You poor dears. I hope all is well now. There should be other letters soon since the 19th. with news.

But what glorious letters they are, read like that in a row, and how fortunate I am indeed.   It does seem impossible that I shall have you with me.   I have never told you before, it was too “strong” when time had no limit; of a quatrain I have thought of very often for a long time now…
“Western wind, when will thou blow.
The small rain down can rain!
Christ, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!”

 As for you or me being “different”, I think not, because it is not the superficial things which count with us about us. As usual William sums it up in a sonnet…
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,

But the time is getting short. It all depends on there being accommodation on the Reina della Pacifico now, she is due in from India on the ninth and sails on the tenth. If there is room we sail on her, and then a ten day voyage should get us into England, Into England! It won’t be long after that anyhow.    The situation is recognised to such a degree that Ian is taking me to Cairo next weekend for a last week-end, staying at the International, where he has booked rooms, dinner at the Mena House, by the Pyramids, an afternoon at the Museum and an evening at Henry V. And the Mess are giving a farewell dance on the 8th. which sounds pretty formidable.

I wrote last from the air station at Lydda where I had to stay the night on Thursday instead of flying on the Cairo because the RAF boys had “struck” which means Mutiny. I got through to Ian via GHQ, Cairo and as he had to get through to Alex early I arranged to go on by train. So I had one of the four Army seats in the MISR civilian plane at ten o’clock, and after a very dull very high flight through a blue sunlit sky in the rather pretty green and silver DH four engined biplane, sitting in a pretty cabin in a good armchair we touched down at El Maza, Cairo at twelve o’clock. It was a dull flight because the first hour was over the sea and the second over the desert, and apart from a ruled blue line which was the Canal, there was nothing to see.

I went to Sheppeards for lunch and it was very good, and then strolled about Cairo until four o’clock, boarded the Alex express and arrived at eight ten. Taxi to the Mess and there was Henry pleased to see me, and dinner and much talk. Saturday was the Inspection, and a visit with Ian to an Art exhibition in which some of our chaps had done well, lunch and then Henry and I walked in hot sunshine to the Sporting and watched three French men and a boy play first class tennis on the Centre Court, the boy, about seventeen, being the best of them all; it was Wimbledon tennis. Then to the clubhouse for tea and meringues and eclairs, and Desmonds old flame Sophy, came in, the sleek too well bred greek girl, with a female red head violinist who was quite quite mad. They sat with us and then Farouk came and sat at the next table with a man friend. They smoked very good cigars and Farouk told his friend dirty stories about Ibn Saud.   He looks quite nice, not a bit dissipated, well dressed, happy and gay and the only thing about him is that he looks forty five and he’s twenty five, but that’s no fault.   Then we went back to the office, I saw the Colonel over a few things and we played Poker-dice at the bar and I drank my Guinness, and then Henry and I went to the mad woman’s flat where she was practising, Sophy playing, and brilliantly she plays. Then to the Union and Henry stood me a fine dinner with a bottle of , and after that cigars and back to the Sergeants Mess dance, where was Mrs; Hardee, my ex sergeant, now Group RSM’s wife. She had a poor relation with her with an exceedingly plain child of fifteen who only talks Greek so I danced with the child and then to bed.   A nice day.

Sunday was office and conferences on my report, and then at noon to Col Carlson’s flat with Ian for a cocktail party, and after that lunch and to the club with Henry where I got deep into Carter’s books on the Tut-an-Khamen discoveries. Tea there and then dinner at the Lucia, of dressed crab, grilled fish and strawberries and cream, with another bottle of dtaatic, and then to the Mercury where Martin Benson put on a highly creditable Othello. Ian and his lady were there and the mad violinist and Mrs. Brownhill and other people I knew. Behind for a word with an exhausted Othello, the officers club for a Guinness and home to the office to write up the show for the Sphinx and so to bed. This morning Carlson came with Ian and Otto and I to Cairo, in glorious sunshine over the desert, drinks at the Mena House Hotel and then to the Nile Club where we had another three pink gins, me sherry, and Carlson ordered a special lunch, prawn cocktail, mixed grill of gigantic proportions, jam omelette and fruit salad and coffee, me guinness. We shed Carlson at GHQ and then Ian booked our room at the International for the weekend and we slept off our lunch in the car to Suez, even Otto, replete with a kidney and three chop bones, slept. Here I am. Back.

 Just read all through the six letters again. Silly, you, about the photographs! You see things differently to the rest of the world, people find me amiable and clean and friendly but not handsome or clever. But is good that you think that.

 I wonder if you are back at Great Alne yet? I’d better go on lettering you there. I sent a rain of stupid little travel letters on my little jaunt all to home, hope they didn’t all have to be delayed for you.

 Yes, the last letter to MEF will be sent soon. Its not much use writing after the second I suppose.    So by the time this reaches you your last one may be written. I can write to you up to the ninth. After that, watch the shipping News for the progress of the Reine della Pacifico, a British ship she is, I5000 Tons and a very nice one they do say. It all depends on there being cabin accommodation for us. It is odd isn’t it. I am now planning what To Do about work, mustn’t waste too much time, its you who need the holiday. We’ll be together all the while when I am working. I’ve got another play in mind, called “Officers don’t cry….” Another Italian setting, three officers messing in an Italian villa with lovely complications!

 Letter from Bertha, they are doing the Adventure again and she wants to send more gold, I don’t know.

 Oh dear, you will be too much for me. You alone, and you with Richard!    I shall go about bemused.

 I hope the Rector isn’t too hurt at my letter, it wasn’t really naught, I forget what I said really, though.

 All my love and thankyou for everything. Thank God Richard wasn’t iller than he was but you poor distracted dear with him with ear-ache, away from home.
My love to him.
Ever. . .
David

Beirut Airfield: 1130

Dearest:

A nice tidy little airport.  I’m weighed in, have my documents & await my plane in the Naafi here.  Its a calm sunny day.  San Antonio has cleared the storms & gales of yesterday.  It was blowing so hard yesterday that a ship (10,000 T) moored by the quay broke a rib.  So I was expecting a buffeted passage & those disquieting “drops”.  Now it should be perfect flying weather.

There is skiing in the mountains & the army have it all laid on, they are the most amazing travel agents.  We’re not sure whether I go in a two seater luxury MISR plane, Egyptian civil, or an RAF DAKOTA.  I think the comfort of mind with RAF crew more desirable than the comfort of accommodation & wog pilot!

My plan is to stay at Cairo & get Ian to collect me tomorrow, with Otto & my mail, en route for Alex where I have to see the O.C. of these Detachments & take part in a swagger Inspection up there.

This evening I’ll be free to go to the cinema & I’ll visit the museum again in the morning.  Back to Suez on Tuesday.  I want to know what’s been going on in my absence.

I’ve not seen much of Syria, but pottering about in cars does help.  Its calm here potentially, the only thing that angers them is if the French interfere. They hate the French here, & there are many tales of knifings & shootings of French people. They are friendly with us all right & its a strange mixture, Beirut is, of the very new & the old. Flats & buildings are like pictures in the Architectural Review & next to them are crowded middens & rutty lanes.  Prices are very high, but commodities are plentiful. There are no Americans. The women are very smart & French fashions & styles abound.  These charming little trios, the donkey, the camel & the peasant go about together.

Lydda market was on when I was there & I did want to buy a baby camel for You Know Who.  The kids are jolly, fluffy & lamblegged with spaniels ears & Easter muzzles.  Skip & prance & then stand stupidly & gaze at you.

The papers say it’s very cold at home.  You poor dear.  Get it over by the time I arrived please.  I am starved for news – my fault – gadding about.  But I don’t know what happened.  To the pipes, to Richard, to the village.

Is there really & truly, a Richard at Rosemary Cottage.  You I know.  Candy I know, Richard I have not known.  I don’t know!

Will you tell him that his long reign is over when I am en route?  Well you announce the arrival & prepare him or let him find out?  Not too much ablutionary preparation I prithee, he’d associate me with soap & water.  I’m not unduly clean.

                        Now I’ll take a walk around & see what is to be seen.

  I do love you.

 Oh dear.

David

                         I’ve arrived at Lydda after an odd day ! After being weighed in & writing to you this morning at Beirut we waited for the plane from Cyprus & then learned that he had had engine trouble & had returned ! The train had gone & it was very helpless we were, me & a Lt. Col.. So we tried to get road transport & at last at 3o/c news came of an Anson calling in with a hospital case, & praps he take us. He came & did, only he had no seats in his fuselage. However, we sat on suitcases & left out 4 & arrived at 5, after a pleasant trip. It was interesting seeing the Palestine Problem so objectively, laid out as a map ! Then there were more complications ! No planes were flying to Cairo because the airmen had “struck,” -Mutiny is a better word. So I am stranded at the Air station, though very comfortably, for the night. I fly on tomorrow in a civil plane all being well & arrive at Cairo at midday.

                        The next problem was liaison with Ian & the telephone line was hopeless. So I got on to Cairo to the Duty Officer at H/Q & he passed a message. It has worked. Ian knows where I am, & is leaving a warrant at El Maza & I go on by train, as he has a conference to go to. So we shall meet at Alex ! It’s been an odd journey & even the light in my room has fuzed !

                        They’re silly airmen. We all want to go home, & they’ll get themselves into serious trouble if they’re handled properly. The officers & sergeants are running the station, & it’s all light-hearted & allakeifck. The air men are glum & obstinate. Syrians you can understand. Not these people.

                        If there is any gap between train set Cairo I might squeeze in Henry V. I did hope to get to Cairo this evening & see it after dinner. But it was a good thing the Dakota wrote down before it picked us up & not after if it had to break down at all.

                        Hope Ian brings my mail up with him ! Passing a message as I did I didn’t get the reminder in. If not it will be Monday I get it. Otto will be pleased to see me & I him.

                        Now a little letter to Mummy & then to bed early & up early-ish. I hope there’s no hitch tomorrow. But this place is not so far from everything as Beirut. So stranded we were.

                        All my love. This morning Syria, this evening Palestine, tomorrow Egypt; soon – England !

                      Half past six & writing in the Dining Room as a company of the I.F. are using this Hotel as an H/Q during the Trouble & have quite properly billeted themselves in the Bar & the  Lounge. We have nice Bren Gun positions outside & a Field Radio in the Lounge.

                        This afternoon, after a rather alcoholic lunch as Farleigh’s guest, where I adopted my usual precaution of sipping & pouring the rest on the floor, I went to the Dead Sea. 400 m below sea level & very hot even now. We had tea there. It’s a long narrow lake surrounded by a wilderness of hills. Almost entirely bare & primaeval. It could be the bottom a volcano, or the ocean bed, dried out as it probably is. Jerusalem being on a hill of rock the road wound downhill all the way for 1000 feet to sea level & then another 1300 feet below. It’s a barren, wild deserted land & Moses must of had  faith to see the Promised Land beyond it. The water, of course, is famously salt, & it’s all very musable. Then we went to Jericho, a quite uninteresting Arab village, & saw the 2 mounds which are all that remains of the old Jericho. Then we crossed Jordan by the Allenby Bridge & I saw the well known river, Avonish with bare & bleak banks & a size larger. We crossed into Transjordan & stood there & so home.

                        I stay here this evening after all & leave by car at 0730 to Lydda, & then  emplane on the R.A.F. Cyprus plane to Beiruth. They’ve been warned there & will take me around, maybe to Tripoli & Latakia & certainly Nazareth & Damascus. Then Haifa by car to visit the detachment there, & after a day or two to Lydda by car & by plane to Cairo on Friday. Maybe Ian can meet me there & on to Alex with him. After that – & a visit to Martin Benson’s Othello & back to Suez & wait patiently for the real journey.

                        Oh dear ! Arriving at your, my, our little house. Having nothing arranged, I’ll be content to look & listen, to sniff & feel the place. You may comb Candy’s ears by way of tribute. She’d appreciate that.

                        I am very excited at the thought, among many others, of seeing the little birds of England. Happy, talented perky little birds. Here the donkeys are nice. Neat feet they have & nice expressions. They think their masters wonderful, no matter how bedraggled & uninspiring mankind considers them. Little boys galloping briskly on light hearted donkeys are enchanting.

                        My plan for this evening is to eat early with a Guinness & then to go to bed & read Granville Barker’s Shakespearean Studies  & then early to sleep. Flying up the coast of Palestine will be interesting. They say that Syria & the Lebanon are very “English” places as regards scenary. Wonder if I’ll meet any old friends of 1224/5 !! Easier if I did not !

                        Dear I do love you. Be patient in these last weeks & patient with this new me when I turn up. I’m exceedingly well-intentioned.

I’ll try to combine reasonable smallness of writing with legibility. You see where I am by the front. There is no claim by the Management that the other David stayed here. As it’s all extremely new & very swish I think it unlikely. It’s a great place & the GHQ have taken the third & fourth floors. It’s near 6^o/_c P.M. & I am waiting to call on Col Farleigh (from whom Ian took over) at 730 when he comes in. I’ll dine here I think. Maybe Farleigh will treat me. ¶ A Heavenly day today, blue sky & warm sun & wondrous clear. I “did” Old Jerusalem this morning, with my nice guide of yesterday. We pattered through the Bazaars, the quaint steep narrow streets (2 laden donkeys can just pass each other) & didn’t buy. We saw the Wailing Wall & being the Jewish Sabbath they wailed loud & long to be allowed to return to the temple. Then we saw the Church of the Holy Sepulchre & moving it is, the place of the Cross, the stone where he was laid when taken down, the Scourging Pillar, the Tomb & the stone, & it’s disturbing to consider the 2000 years of pilgrimages. There are crusaders crosses & many things. From there we went to the Temple Area, & that is lovely, with a Renaissance view of the outer slopes, with the Mount of Olives & Gethsemane. The Mosque of Omar we saw & the site of Solomon’s Temple, the sacrificial stone & this & that. Then back up the Via Dolorosa, with the Stations of the Cross, Veronica’s House & the Pilate Court Room. It’s all very indigestible of course. My guide then took me to his own house for coffee & to see his canaries!

                        After lunch I walked alone, around the walls, past the Newgate & the Damascus gate to the Rockefeller Museum, a very lovely new building, all in the best white stone (the Bible calls it Milk Stone). Solomon’s Temple had it & so does the British Residency! Then back observing & sniffing & listening. It’s all very clean, unlike the bazaars of Cairo. Now I’m basking in the luxury of this hotel & after seeing Farleigh shall dine here. I think I’ll go to Haifa tomorrow. There’s so much to see I don’t like staying on.
My love, ever thus in public –

This sightseeing business is very difficult. Since half past two and before five I saw Jerusalem without its walls, saw the Brook Kedra, walked on the Mount of Olives, walked in the Garden of Gethsemane, saw the Church of All Nations built around the rock whereon Jesus prayed while the Disciples slept, drove a dozen miles to Bethlehem, passed Rachel’s tomb, past the field where the Shepherds Watched their Flocks, past the well where the Wise Men stopped & from where they saw the star, saw the city of Bethlehem, the first church of all, the cave where Jesus was born, the Manger, & enough historical & archaeological treasures for a years study and that’s only between lunch and tea. I’ve old Jerusalem tomorrow, the Via Dolorosa with the Stations of the Cross the Holy Sepulchre, the mosque of Omar, the Wailing Wall & Crusader & Christian relics & remains galore. Today we saw & I passed over it, Jerome’s cell where he wrote the Vulgate & his tomb.

                        The only answer is to take in a little, keep your emotions in check & just look at the place & be satisfied with having seen it. More is impossible. Afterwards one can, perhaps, speculate on these things, with the impetus of having seen them. I’m a poor pilgrim. But it does help, just having seen them. I never realised how hilly & wilderness surrounded is Jerusalem. Nor that Bethany, Bethlehem & the journey of the Wise Men is all so possible geographically.

                        I’ve only seen the old city from the Mount of Olives, over the deeply cut & boulder strewn brook Kedra which surrounds it on three sides. But the New Jerusalem is a wonderful place. It has all been created since 1917 when Allenby won Jerusalem from the Turks. There are wide tarmac roads & fine pavements, & the loveliest buildings, new & so beautifully designed. There could be no better proof of the success of British Administration. Every building is lovely & all in clean white cut stone; behind & in between is the wilderness, rugged boulder strewn scrub, but as a new city it’s superb. It’s all very hilly here. Our train from Lydda climbed all the while & only twice did we touch little outcroppings of civilisation. The Dead Sea I saw from the Mount of Olives, & I bought an eggcup of black rock, Dead Sea Rock.

                        The things I didn’t buy. Oh, I was so sensible. Trying to curb my buying now. At Bethlehem it was the Armenian Christmas & the “stable” was gorgeously hung with crimson tapestries & black bearded patriarchs with funny hats & gorgeous vestments were conducting a special service. Everyone had candles & lots of children – Armenian ones – frisked & clattered about. Odd.

                        A kindly Franciscan Friar gave me the enclosed leaf from the garden for you & also the flower. Both from the Garden of Gethsemane.

                        There’s so much to say & so many thoughts are prompted by this afternoon’s trip that I better say no more & think it over.

                        The train journey was very orderly. It was a ten coach first class with three sleepers & one dining car, & I had a whole side of a compartment to myself. In my loose  & wearing a jersey I was not cold & slept smoothly. I took the air & a cup of tea at Gaza (Eyeless in Gaza) at 0600 & we got to Lydda at 0800 & the new train, for Jerusalem, left at 0850 & after climbing through a veritable wilderness of mountainy country made Jerusalem at 1145. The trains were made at Smethwick & the lavatory at Birmingham. Everyone here goes to work with his animal, nearly always a small delicate footed donkey, often with a camel as well. They even plough with camels !

                        Now I’m ready for bed, to make up the night in the train. I intend going out to Haifa on Monday by train, as Adjt., to visit the 1003 detachment. Then to Beirut on Tuesday, & to Damascus.

                        As always, I need you with me on expeditions like these & see everything with a view to seeing it properly with you.

                           Steadily Time unrolls, here under blue skies & a kind sun, & I am conscious that my so carefully controlled & patient excitement is matched by anticipation & infinite thought & loving kindness at my home. Don’t make it a trouble, I shall be so intensely happy to see you & our meadows.

                        Tomorrow I go off on my last sightseeing jaunt this tour, with a pocketful of travel warrants. My trip is brief it should be interesting & will help to passing ultimate weeks. I go by train tomorrow at 1615 to Ismaila, & arrive at 1700. Then a leisurely dinner at the United Services club & I join the Palestine train at 2200, where I’ve seat reserved. Young doggy Donald isn’t coming afterall, a good thing, I prefer the freedom of solitude for travel, if I can’t have one ideal companion. We are due at Lydda at 0700 & Jerusalem at 0900. Thereafter my plans are vague. I shall sightsee and do a job or two at  H/Q & leave on Monday for Haifa, where there is a Detachment in distress. I’ll have a look at the place & go up Mt. Carmel (seen only in a ship) & then drive up to Beirut & see another detachment & have a look at Syria & then on Wednesday or Thursday come scampering back. Ian & I go to Alexandria for the weekend, and I’ll say my adieux & then mark time here for the final Movement Order. Quite a nice program. Its silly not to see these places when so near to them. Especially as our trade is what it is.

Still no letters. If postie doesn’t do something tomorrow I’ll have to wait a week ! We’re all starved – everyone of us. Mail is so vital to those of us who depend.

                        Nothing of note. My days are uniform. To Port Tewfiq at 8o/c for the Daily Conference. Leave 9.30 & drive back (it’s about 10 miles) & then office. A walk around with the Sgt. Major & Town Planning progress noted. Colonel comes in at midday & we have half an hour. A Guinness in the bar & lunch. A read, a snooze, a game of tennis, tea & toast at 4.30 & office 5 to 8o/c. A Guinness & dinner & read, write, cards or sit till bedtime, usually at 11o/c with a half hour read. So pass the days, quite the most agreeable in my brief soldiering career.
Oh, I saw & nearly fell to a tiny camel hair dressing gown in Suez this morning ! But it’s difficult to know the size & he’d so swiftly grow out of it. Soft & teddy bearish it was & priced at PT 180 – £1 – 16 – 0 ! I strongly resisted it.

                        How fares the son & heir ? Hope he’ll have something to be heir to !

                        I must away & wash for dinner. All my love.

                      Oh dear, I do love you -the much coloured memories of you, the idea of you & the mind of you transmitted by your letters. This is like the Engagement period all over again – the arrival of my Release Book being the betrothal & the arrival the marriage !

                        And that’s a fine way to start a letter to be sure !

                        Monday evening & me in front of a fine fire in the Mess, a Poker game in progress & a Guinness by my side. After this bed.

                        I go to Haifa & Beirut, via Jerusalem on Thursday. Officially, so I’ll train to Jerusalem & then they’ll provide me with a car. Young Donald, (surname) of 1012 comes with me as assistant. A nice boy who’s just become engaged to his “Katie”, a Birmingham lass named Katie Toft of the Art School in Moseley. We’ll have a week or 10 days & see the “sights” & then back. Then a farewell weekend in Alex & then marked time till our ship comes in. Peter takes over on Thursday & I’ll finish off by saying how our detachments fall. Silly to be so near these childhood names & not see them – Bethlehem, Nazareth, Mount of Olives & the Sea of Galilee.

                        Tennis yesterday afternoon & then a quiet time – a letter to Mother & Jim Jeffs, & some reading & the gramophone. It was one of those days one imagines the Egyptian winter climate produces, warm & a very hot sun.

                        Poor Ame & her Mark ! The death of a dog is always sad & when he is a sole companion, as Mark was it’s very hard to bear. Poor Ame.

                        No mail for five days, the aireal postie must be delay. It will come. Letterless days have always been ordinary & lettery days radiant ones. You’ve been a wonderful correspondent, achieving both quantity & quality.

                        Tomorrow a soccer & a rugger team goes up to Alex to play against the Alex Group, a 3 days festival. I’m staying here while Peter goes to Port Said for two days. After his return I’m an Elder Statesman.

                        No news, much love. And Richard ! I’ll see him.