Poor David ! As usual I’m having a quite delightful spell in bed, in the Base Hospital. All very San Antonioesque ! Tuesday – full of fun. Off duty 1300hrs. and with Peter to find a photographers, & it was shut, for your picture of David in Italy – (I wear my peaked cap always, apropos of your question in that connexion) & then Peter & I found a very good café & had china tea & lemon & macaroons of the most soft & seductive kind. A quiet evening in the Mess – Italian, chatting & this & that & then to bed. Suddenly wild dreams & a head divided against itself. Peter fetched the doc in the morning. Temp uppish. Doc wafted me here. A pale blue & cream room with 7 beds. vast sunny windows & two days sheer sleep & the chart did its usual, . Now I just doze & read & idle & eat wildly good food – chicken ad lib, cream, oranges all day, eggs, sole, everything you dream of; & feel a rare right humbug. The excellent M.O.s have tested me for everything, but I’m quite sound, just St. Anthonary – laziness ! Sweet sheeted bed, blue fluffy blankets, pretty room, one gay bubbly Col, two Majors, one Lt.(RN) & two Captains & me. All full of fun & a touching courtesy about each other’s temps & symptoms. The Mess visits daily, 3 at a time & gazes disbelievingly at the Sisters & everyone is kind. I’ve got Mary Webb’s Gone to Earth, D.H.L.’s Twilight in Italy, (sent by J.G.L.) & a pile of novels & papers of all kinds ! I am a striped Humbug. And enjoying it all so much. Clean pyjamas today, brought by glistening Peter. And the sky is blue & the sun is blazing down through the windows. No pity, but don’t blame me for another fine example of capitalising “Poor David” ! I’m writing this in bed at 1600hrs on a splendidly sunny Italian afternoon.

                        This afternoon visitors brought me your letter of the 18/1/44 – with the sonnet in it – & an Airgraph from Rolf from GREENWAYS, West Byfleet, & a real spontaneous  from Chris. A dear letter & the most touching thing of all is his tail-piece – “I’m making a lorry for Richard in woodwork, I’ve just got to finish turning the wheels” – Chris, making a lorry for Richard. It’s all just too much. Why is life so very beautiful. Richard MUST pull, drag, push or roll the lorry in the presence of the donor at the first opportunity. A special course of lorry pulling is indicated if necessary. But Christopher’s letter was so spontaneously courteous & he assures me that he thinks “of the lovely holiday at Swansea, nearly every night” !!

                        Oh, a letter from Honor this week & one from David Wilson, demure, warm & precise. And a touching outburst from his Mother.

                        Yes, I didn’t mean Peter to buy any books, the Lin Yutang & Vanity Fair were asked for, but it was kind of him. But one can’t buy books from other people for other people ! The records he succeeded in however – a gay little letter from him, too, this week.

                             I’ll assuredly get you a picture of “David in Italy”, I tried, as explained above, but the only likely places didn’t work. Since then I’ve been hors de combat. But you shall have the picture. I use those I have of you & Dickie so often. He does sound a nice person ! Looking at you out of your eyes & smiling with my smile. He has the same delicious niceness to smile at as I had and have, hence the same smile. I feel that we shall get on famously. We have plenty in common anyhow. The new pictures are eagerly awaited.

                        Mother may have had a gap in my letters. These have been in short supply & I have been is reduced to sending her aerographs. Tell her I’m fit & well. I’ll get another of these today so I’ll send one this evening. I’ll tell her I’m in dock, but she & you must believe me when I assure you it’s all sheer . I discern a rather brilliant line of British policy, of legitimate extravagance over war. This hospital has everything to excess, as though they said, those people over there won’t have time to pinch & manage, let’s be rash. We have more chicken, real butter, eggs, fruit & first-class fare of all kinds than can be used. Hence lavish plenty & why not. Not for me. I’m a Humbug, but for the real ill & wounded. It’s a fine brave & realist policy. It’s the same with military equipment. Petrol & ammo & all essentials. Just a glorious staggering plenty, which makes our co-belligerents & enemies starve. Short of having a Staples Mattress this hospital is perfect, it’s a modern Italian one we’ve taken over. It’s far better equipped & staffed than any of the hospitals I was in the U.K.

                        It will soon be spring ! My dear ! I’ll be with you in spirit. The daffodils, the primroses, busy birds, on recces, and all a twitter. Richard will love his spring walks. Yes, we are lovers indeed. Sorry I haven’t written for a week – I have been lazy. All to the good, by way of preserving my youth. We will cycle, the three of us.