Monthly Archives: March 2013

Monday evening

 Monday evening.b

Monday evening, in the Garbett bed-sit
on the Garbett typer, on the ex-Garbett
paper.

My Dearest,
D’you feel all guilty and daring ? I feel that I’ve squared my wife with a cracker-jack alibi, and that you have got your husband off in the Air Force, and that I’ve prevailed upon you to dash to London for One Night of Love. I feel all dashing and fast and feckless and hat-on-the-side-of-the-head. Dear practical you seduced by reckless me. Seduction is the order of the day. Don’t let that chap on the book case know. Nor the bear.

In the bottom desk drawer is also a gold chain, given us for an emergency. Lying there it does no good. Take it out, look at it, think of the Family Heirlooms, and then close your hand on it and drop it into your bag. In London we’ll pop it. I mean it, its our duty to sell gold for the Government.

As I see it our hotel bill will be twenty five bob and dinner and extras ten bob.  And the cause justifies any means. My need of stroking you is great. Pity we can’t get out to Windsor.

So yipeee for our Wickedly glorious twenty four hours. Pause to eat a mouthful of game pie Mrs. G. has just brought in. Peter is in bed with a cold and we are all eating trays of game pie, beer (me) and I’ve had sherry. Port to follow.

We’ll have Jinks. Bring that chain and locket, its our duty. Gold is needed to win the war, yes.

Dear you. Its a miracle of pertinacity that I’ve got the day off, I’ll tell you how I stuck to my guns and got it. I risked having at least my nose chewed off. But I did. And Harry Foster drives to the station.

I’m that thrilled.

Paddington, 2.40, me a soldier with a big kit bag unless I’ve parked it. Yes, I’ll park it at King’s Cross.

Bye bye my nicest one. Look out for a dashing soldier who will prevail upon you TO STAY AT A HOTEL WITH HIM. Its sheer seduction, and how.

And talk and laughs and walks and so on. Ever your own. . .
Monday evening.c

Scarborough. Sunday afternoon.

Scarborough.  Sunday afternoon.  Sitting in the Battery Office.

My Dearest,
What an unsatisfactory conversation we had, us with so much to say, bickering for six brief minutes.  But I plunged you into propositions two sharply, and you haven’t all the details of the probable reason for my posting. (The B.S.M. has just popped in, bless him, and his face lit up – “writing a novel ?” he said.  I explained it was a letter, but he asked me all the simpleton questions about book writing.  Now he’s gone after confessing that he’s paid four guineas for an encyclopaedia through the Waverley Book Coy., The instalment system people.  And also that he has a scheme for getting one of the soccer pitches ploughed up for potatoes.  The hearts are sergeant majors are simple. (Glad I was at my post.)

I’ll ring again tonight at 6.30 to get through at once, and hoping you are not to church.  Then I’ll explain that I go on Thursday and might, no more than might, get posted to travel on Wednesday, if Waddy remembers to get round the Adjutant and if the adjutant members to instruct the Admin. sergeant to do so in orders.  So it’s no more than a might.  And we would have to meet in London because I’ll be on duty travelling on warrant, on a specified route, Scarborough – York – Kings cross, Waterloo – Winchester – Barton Stacey.  I can break the journey it in London or York on en route, having two days, if I have two days, but not to deviate from it, that would be a dangerous crime.  And silly when I am a sprig of the nobility if I behave.

Waddy had me in yesterday and produced the W.O.’s letter answering the Colonel’s.  It said that I was attached to the R.E. OCTU under paragraph 4 or something or other.  I could refuse the OCTU but that would be silly and the end of my chances for rising in the scheme of things.  Waddy says that as there are eleven of us picked from different R.A. regiments in the Northern Command it looks as though they want to have a number of Gunner officers with Transportation qualifications.  He thinks it a compliment, picking out some presumably bright A’s, perhaps for interesting H/Q work.  And he says, get your commission first, and when that is safe, you can always transfer back to the R.A.’s especially if you have had preliminary training there.

So we must be calm and not rebel against the W/O which is not always mad and often is very wise.  It has won a lot of wars in the past and is doing its best to win this one.  It knows more than you or I or even Waddy and the Colonel about what it wants me to do.

Its pestilential going to Scotland, it may not be a long OCTU, and it may be St. Anthony after all, preserving me from the risks of the O.P. for the more healthy and equally vital for docks. Waddy says that for R.E. work you get Corps Pay, which is much higher than the R.A. pay.  So we must be thankful I’m not on a ship going to Singapore and then finding is too late and cruising round the China seas like many folk.  We have so many things to be thankful for, that a quibble over my own vanity is a small thing.

Bless you for your lioness-like defence of my vanity, roaring at the War Office

Because they don’t think so much of your lion as you, poor misguided the delicious animal, think.  Or maybe they do and have a nice organising job for me.  And anyhow, whatever way we look at it, we can’t alter it, so voila.

About meeting.  If I get off on the Wednesday I can’t get to Great Alne, much as I love our bed and dog and walks and trees and us in our home.  I’ve made extensive enquiries this morning about the chances, and Sgt. Everson, who’s the whole spirit and nerve centre of the Administration Office.  And it appears that it would be a dangerous proceeding.  So, I do want to see you, talk with you, look at you, touch you, cuddle you, stroke you, pat you, pet you and sleep with you, and one opportunity is indeed Golden.  If you can go to London, it will be a very happy day, and not to be missed.  I suggest you rob, burgle, hire yourself out, forge, borrow, lend, pawn a chicken, or hire a cat out to raise the fare.  We can meet at King’s Cross.  Have some tea together, chickle, and then go to Southgate.  Its a nuisance having to be with relatives, but can we afford an hotel ?  Why not sell the car ?  Ring Norman and let the car be the cause of one gay night.  We could stay in an hotel if we had the money that would be nicest of all, just us alone.  It looks as if the PRACTICAL thing is to stay with them !  I’ll talk it over with you.

But this is all IFFFFF.  Except that if we fail I’ll move heaven and earth to get of forty eight hours very very soon and we can meet in London then, or at Romsey.  So you see you soon I will, or bust.  And bust I won’t.

So this is the line. You lay provisional plans for going to Birmingham on Wednesday morning and going to London.  Nuisance though this is, the happiness your being there will give me will compensate you, because you like me being happy. Good.  You lay provisional plans.  As soon as I know definitely I’ll wire or phone, saying either PARTY OFF (in which case provisional plans are cancelled and we are Brave About It) or I tell you what time I arrive at King’s Cross.   Then you put P.Ps into operation and Bob is our Uncle, or if we are so poor, Fred is our Uncle.  Clear ?

I’ve a cold in my head, but not disfiguring, not temperatureal, not harmful.  I’m sad at leaving this happy abode.  Your nice Thursday letter came yesterday afternoon.  Catalog – – – Dogalog, you coot.  And I bet you were the peach of the ball at the dance, in your modest yet fascinating creation to suit the wife of the man at the wars.  I bet your mother was good when she won her prize.  Bless her.  One’s heart grows very fond of her, given the chance, doesn’t it.

I’ll ring up tonight, with my last one and four, because you sounded so distressed yesterday and I must clear it all up.  Then I’ll raise a couple of bob somehow and ring up again when I know what’s happening.  Definitely Thursday, perhaps Wednesday.

Much is my love, go on writing.  I believe my address will be Daniell A.S. 1118794 (not sure about the L/Bdr.) 2nd. Training Battalion, R.E., C Camp, Barton Stacey, Winchester.  Then after 23rd. April it will be Auchinroath House, Bothwell, near Glasgow, with 1435d.  OCTU at the top of it, by the way.  Details later.

I’m so glad you understood my being a father to anyone, your permission in writing will be carefully preserved.

Bye bye white bird, pink bird.  How are the hens ?

Tea time.  I’ve permission to pop out between 630 and seven, no more.  A great consession.

All my love of the best and other kinds,

Ever . . . . .

Scarborough. Sunday afternoon.d

Saturday afternoon, miscarriage

Saturday afternoon, damp and cold but not cold, as a Great Thaw has come.

My dearest
Having had trying journeys I slept after lunch this afternoon, and then went to the Postie hole and found he had my yesterday’s letters and to-days, so I had three letters from you to read one from mother – with ten bob to have a Victoria Sunday – and a Spectator and three Digests from Eleanore whom please thank for me.  Three letters from you, the daft one with the picture of the Odeon crowds which made me laff and laff and the Punch cutting which puzzles me and hurts me and yet perhaps he means well it’s so difficult to understand.  Anyhow its a mention.  As for the other business I’m terribly sorry, not for my own behalf, which of course I am, but for you and your disappointment.  Poor unlucky darling.  Thank heavens I’m staying in England for some months yet – I hope.  Poor you, don’t despair, all will be well and the solidity of the flesh, pink-brown and sweet smelling, will banish these wraiths and worries.  But it is disappointing for poor you.  I hope it doesn’t make your poorly bad, does it ?  Oh dear.  How can

Here I am, back in action.  Leave is a definite as ever it can be, because they’ll not post me now, as an A Octu candidate.  One is reserved and wears a halo it and Mr. Rose chats man to man and people eye one askance and the only posting one can get is to the Octu and that’s just what one doesn’t know when it will happen.  There may be a pre-OCTU of course, not a bad idea, get a good feel of the Unit in work and action.  I hope there is.

It is rather astonishing to have an Ack chance in the FIELD artillery, you know.  Its terrific.  Three of yesterdays candidates, quite young pukka wallahs of twenty three and four applied for Field and were put in anti tank I found out afterwards.  I’m the only field one there.  Its a doubtful choice, because the course is half as long again as the others, 4½ months against three, (six weeks in the R.A.S.C., R.A.O.C., R.A.C., and R.E. non specialist) And its a terrific course.  I doubt if I can make it, I certainly can’t make it without great efforts.  I travelled down with a Sigs. Octu man whose lines at Catterick are alongside the RA OCTU lines and he says they have four weeks of terrific bullshit on the Square and pass out looking like veritable Guardsmen, amazingly smart and slick.  Lectures are from 8 in the morning until ten past seven in the evening, when an hour off for dinner and half an hour for tea.  P.T.  is three hour and a half periods every week and its Commando P.T.  All this is new and tightened up, as they want very tough junior R.A. Field officers for the invasion.  We have to do Log-drill, all concerted stuff, not free-movement, and unarmed combat, and boxing, and also the Commando stunt of twenty mile marches and then swim a river, in full kit.  But what it says is if the other blokes can do it, I can, and there’s a terrific enthusiastic spirit in it, its a proud sort of OCTU all volunteers, no conscripts – and that’s where I’m so lucky.  After the first month you settle down to brain work, higher maths, conic sections and Lord Knows what, Metallurgy, gun building and maintenance, explosive work, and signalling.  There is my pull.  They have to do a full signals course, the one I’ve just done, only hotted up.  Morse at fifteens and so on also one is theory.  As I can do twelves now and the rest will not know the Morse code I’ll have four and a half months to increase to fifteen.  The only thin ray of pale sunshine.

But if I get R.T.U.  its just too bad, it won’t be for want of trying (R.T.U.- Return To Unit) And it is worth it.  D’you know that if an infantry officer transfers to the R.A.  he goes down one rank ?  A captain in the R.A. is equal to a major in any other arm.  So its worth it. Oh, and that he is an M.T. course, the same as I did in B battery, so that’s another help.  There’s a lot of motor bike riding, rough riding, as officers have to dash about not as in olden days on horses, but on Mo’bikes.  I’ll like that.

So by a stroke of vast and inexplicable luck I’ve got into the Field Artillery for a Commission, and although its the most difficult of all, it’s the best to do.  It is the arm that I like best, I can get to love twenty five pounders, I more or less said that two so nice Colonel Waller.  And the other blokes will be grand young chaps.  D’you think I did right ?  It may be Catterick, near Richmond, lovely in the spring, it may be Alton in Staffordshire.  I hope so.

For postings went this morning, and now there’s whip round for Commando volunteers, unmarried, under thirty and very tough.  The three of our wild Scots naughty boys have volunteered.  It seems the British Army are developing the Commando idea hard.   Looks like business sometime.  In the autumn, when I am a junior a Gun Position Officer ?  Laying a twenty five pounder troop on Magdeburg railway station !!!  Or ten rounds Gun Fire Battery Target on Hitler’s mountain eyrie ?

Leave, anyhow is drawing near.  I telephoned tomorrow, perhaps this evening if I can’t resist the temptation.  Then no need to ring up.  I’ll come to the W.I. and the listen to the talk on precious stones.  Yes I will.  You can ferret in the library on the Monday you meet me, yes no ?

Oh, St. Peter’s York !  How odd.  I called at the Vic last night when my tired train got in at nine fifteen to telephone you but there was a two hour delay hence the telegram, and I met Peter’s mother and she took me up to his room where he has been having a nice little-boy-cold for a few days.  They were sweet and have adopted me and brought me soup and biscuits and jam roly poly to eat on his bed and they are arranging for me to spend the day some Sunday at their cottage in the Dales, about 5 miles away soon, so that we can fish and eat a lot and its all very nice and friendly.  A nice lonely woman I must find out about her.  Elderly to have a fourteen year old Peter.  His main concern in life is his headmaster – of his Prep school – who has just got married and has a duodenal Ulcer.  He crops up a lot in the a conversation, very sweet.  Its a change from the Barrack Room anyhow.

I am so empty now, the Barrack Room, only Robinson and (not Cleaver) Carrol, Pile, Towney, Dickie, Barry and me.  All empty beds otherwise.

Cold, I must to tea, my love to thee and cheer up my darling all will materialise.

 I love you.
Ever and ever.
David .

Scarborough. Tuesday night

Scarborough. Tuesday night, 10.30 Battery Office

My dearest,
I’ve tucked the battery up and put them to bed, put out their lights and locked up.  My Battery sleeps snugly or illicitly toasts bread snaffled from the cookhouse at the stove by candlelight, – which is my business yet none of my business.  Squad 96 is asleep, bless them, all virtuous and tired, except four who are on Main Guard and one who has a roaring temperature and feels bloody, – vaccination of last week, that first to fall.  He’s so sorry for himself.  I’ve found him two extra blankets and some aspirin and he’ll do for the night.  They’re fetching me if he’s worse and I’ll fetch Nurse Parke.  But he can go sick and to hospital in the morning.

We had a busy day, as per programme, and spent a long time practicing Guard Mounting, and I watched them on the square like an anxious hen over chicks just going out in the world.  They did creditably.

Why is it a distinction to drill holes in princess’ teeth-– too many boiled sweets and sticky foods in war time is the cause.

A nice letter from you about you and Eileen in Town and one thing and another.  Fancy a testimonial like that from staid Eileen !

The enclosed stamped card is for magpie-Klaus, also the envelope.  The letter for you to read and destroy.  Aren’t they thorough !  I’ve answered their query.

You clever girl, milking the cow.

Letter – and cigarettes – from mother this afternoon.  She loves the chair backs, really does, and wore my flowers, and she said she thought you very brave after the station.  She’s sent you out to buy shoes as an anodyne.  A sweet thought.  She says her foots troubling her and she’s thinking of seeing the Doctor.  She must, at once.

Having a Squad all day is quite tiring, I felt very weary this evening and after doing the blackouts I lay on the bed in the office and slept until nine.  Up at half five to get them all up and to see to my sick soldier.

Oh, a nice little job this afternoon while Powlely gave them a map reading test, I went to the weekly mess meeting representing the battery.  In the Adjutant’s Office, Messing Officer in the chair, Sgt. Cook at his side.  Five of us.  We discussed the menu for next week item by item and then made suggestions and criticisms.  All very masculine and domestic.  It was a great affair. The (Army?) does take care of its men, really, and great pains are taken to give them interesting food.  The features next week are salmon, rissoles for supper and fish cakes for tea one day.  A problem was a consignment of liver ordered from NAAFI for breakfast tomorrow, and when it came it was half liver and half ox-tail and you can’t serve oxtail for breakfast, and half a consignment is no good for dinner.  So we have liver and sausage, and put some corned beef with the ox-tail for stew, in place of sausages.  Yours isn’t the only household with problems.

No news of Candy lately, is she hibernating or what.  Hens doing their stuff ?  You doing yours ?  Your mother hers ?  Klaus his ?  How is uncle Jack ?  How’s the whole spinning world of the parish ?  I must go to bed, I love you greatly.

Bless you, and a General comes on Saturday, blast his glossy boots.

Ever and ever yours . . . .
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