In a tiny office, on a nice five hold ship in the Docks.  We are stowing, a fascinating job, like packing five very large suitcases, & packing them well & truly.  I’ve just found a lot of cases from Wilson & Watson, Kettering !!  Well!  As you might say.

                        Oh, this pen.  Mother sent it.  Its a make new to me – “Kingswood” but it functions perfectly & seems to be very top drawer.  Black & gold.  Mrs. Bond produced it for mother & here it is.  Now I have this & the Blackbird, austere & dignified.

                        Immediate plans are to London on Friday night, too W/O for instructions, all of us except the O/C – who has his & Jack.  Then I follow these instructions & live an isolated life on a ship in some port.  Letters will be possible, but shore leave not possible.  Then we go on this exercise, & no letters for a while.  So that will be that.  But it’s always maybe.  About letters, you’d better hold your hand, or not post them, until I give you an address, an A.P.O. address may be.  I shall probably have my steel uniform case sent home.  Mrs. Thom or Lockley will see to that.  There again I can’t say definitely yet.  But be not alarmed if the trunk does come home.  I need a suitcase really, but there’s not time.  If I have an address I’ll have you send that ream of paper.  Let there be plenty of paper.

                        I shall send details to the Bank of action to be taken if I am bumped off, Plan B.  Not that I shall but one may as well take precautions.  Your pension would be £90 a year- £7-10 a month, very little I’m afraid, & £150 cash.  Also £24 for the child = total of £9-10-0 a month.  You could also claim £35 a year for the child’s education from the age of 8 to 18.  But I think this has all been increased.  The actual figures will go to the bank.  Also £250 Life Insurance.  But let’s not go too solemnly into all this.  Its just for academic interest.  You’d not starve anyhow.  Yet I intend to be there afterwards to provide horses & a little brat & an orchard !!

                        We have only a very short time to arrange everything, pack & be gone, though not away on the exercise for quite a while.  My main concern is you & your health, your adventure, your comfort & your peace of mind.  When the time does come for us to set out, remember that it is no desperate forlorn cause, but a terrific, irresistible, brilliantly organised & powerfully supported onslaught.  Seeing what I have seen I have no doubts at all of the outcome of it all.

                        luckier than he !  You can never tell, we all thought he would be here for some months yet.

                        Off for a walk around the dock to see how they’re all getting on.

                        Played trains – a rattle of wagons, carefully ordered, came to match the holds & was the wrong way round.  So, protesting, it had to go away & come back the other way round.  After dinner, eaten in the shed, I visited the home, a very dignified home, of 14 horses, drey horses.  Three were at home, 11 out at work.  A large substantial place, 14 large clean houses, red paint, sweet horsey smell, fodder neatly piled, brass taps polished, collars & harness all spick & span.  A very old man, bow legged, & a very small boy, straight legged, served them.  I’m calling this evening at 8o/c to see them all, especially Fred, a very clever horse they say.  We leave here at 10 o/c & we left the H.Q. at 0700 !  Quite a day.  A night shift takes over.  Day & night we pack our five suitcases, electric cranes helping us.

                        In a way I’m glad I’ve only a “token” picture of you.  I could never be satisfied.  It is a wonderful range of expressions you have, the fluent passing loveliness that I have in my heart & mind.  It is more vivid than any photograph.  Only a portrait by someone of genius, at his peak, would serve.  It is better to carry, as I do, your numberless expressions, your laugh, your voice & the scent of you.  Those I cannot lose.  One day we’ll have a portrait painted, for our child.  But pictures of the child will be relished & worshipped.

                        No more for a little while.  Dear, how I do love you !

                      Back from the telephone box.  A sweet talk.  Its lucky having another one as we leave here at nine, & I’m busy, although stealing a minute to write this.  Too busy to stand by for a call.  And back at the office, at 10o/c I have to feed the men & then go to the mess to wash and eat.  But maybe I’ll telephone.

                        You were a little sad this evening.  Poor sensitive darling.  Ought I to say nothing, sparkle & be gay & then – phoof – go away ?  No, that would be a shock.

                        Look at it this way.  Apart from being away from you, which is hard enough, dear knows, I shall be exalted & happy in this great adventure.  Its not David going alone against lots of fierce Germans, its David with a magnificent company of clever & brave men, sallying forth with the whole might of the Empire & the States, with the Navy & the R.A.F.,  & not to storm bastions, as thousands will do, but to sit on a ship 8 miles from the shore, discharging cargo with 80 very devoted & trusting soldiers too care for.  And although there must be casualties, only a small percentage of the solders become casualties, & only some of them are killed.  And I have notorious luck, & my easy job is a token of that !  So brace up & wear & use that courage we all expect of you.  For your dear sake alone I’d preserve myself for our afterwards.

                        Anyhow I haven’t gone yet.  Now I’ll go & see what they’re doing.  All my dearest love, my sweet, & always you’re in my heart & mind.  Write on, & to me c/o Mrs. Thom, or perhaps you’d better hold your pen.  I’ll telephone my address directly I can.