A wobbly letter this will be.  A fine night & Allan, Peter, Uncle Fred & Matthew & I in a reserved compartment.  A lovely evening it is, too.  Children playing in parks, factories working smokily.  Now a street, & the people idling.  So we speed south, & then ?  Half north & then ?

                        Nice telephone this evening, you very sensible & brave & sensible.  Dear wife.  Your letter at the Thoms was even better than your past ones.  Touching tea-party with the Thoms, from 5.30 to 6.15, all subdued & affectionate.  Mrs. Thom was charmed with your letter too.  She is so fond of you.  She loved your observation about the family being summed up in the phrases “Oh James” & “But Mummie”.  How very true, dear lonely fatherless folk.

                        I keep remembering our last journey down these rails, the sweet intimacy of it all.  But memories are but the rails along which the future runs.  We must be careful with our memories, & look forward, to the future which has so much in it.  I have great faith in the future of the nation, & out of this pandemonium, out of the morass of after the war, will come a sane shining life.  And we shall see it come & our child shall live that new life.  Already I love that child.

                        We have an interview at the War House at 1100, & and then move off again.  Plans after that are vague & very woolley.  But we are all very gay & hopeful.  The O/C was charming after the dinner and saw us off.  We meet later, after a voyage, cruise, what you will.  But think not of a forlorn handful of old ships, imagine instead a powerful, very powerful armada of shining new vessels of every kind.  Never has there been such a voyage in all history.