Jul 261942
 

Sunday
Devonport
Dearest,
First of all, about letters. I have forgotten two or three times to let you know the time taken for them to reach here. The postmark on your Saturday letter is not legible, but one of them recently was postmarked 4.45pm one day and I received it at 4.30 the following day. Answering that little point gets a load off my mind! Funny how little things like that worry you.
Sorry to hear that you have been having a bad time with the plot. Do you think all the onions will go? It’s a pity if they do, although we did not do so remarkably well with them last year, did we? I had hoped for better results from both the onions and the leeks. Every year there seems to be something which goes wrong. Look at our experiences with cauliflower last year. At any rate it’s a comfort that the tomatoes stood up to the high wind. If I were you I’d hunt out that other glass jar because last year it took quite a long time to get the old sweets out of the other one. To hark back to the onions, one cause of the trouble may be that someone along the row of plots has had trouble with onion fly but has not tackled it properly, with the result that everyone is having trouble with that particular pest. That does happen where you have a lot of gardens running cheek by jowl and is one of the main reasons why each person should be careful to burn all diseased plants instead of just leaving them to rot and breed further disease. But apart from your troubles, I’m glad you are getting out into the plot more. The fresh air does you good. Have you picked any of the raspberries? In spite of all the rain you should find a good crop ripe now because once they begin to ripen they come along very quickly and you’ll probably find a lot well hidden away. On the subject of fruit, I should pluck the few blackcurrants from the bushes if I were you. It may harm your trees to let the currants run to seed. Even though you don’t use them, take them off.
Possibly I am to blame for Mother’s mood because I haven’t written to her yet as I was waiting for some definite move. She is probably annoyed at my neglect and is taking it out on you. I’ll write her today. These incidents between you and Mother worry me when I’m away from home. When I’m there I can deal with them myself. I’m not at all surprised at the line she has taken over Jane’s letter. It’s the obvious way for her to get her own back, and I’ll bet that, if the truth were known, there are several messages in it for us.
Back to gardening again, following the general lines of your letter! One of these days you will have a nasty accident with that fork. For cryin’ out loud, be more careful with it. It’s not the first time you have done that. I’ll have to give you lessons when I come home! One thing you have always been inclined to do is get hold of the fork too far down the handle, which throws it out of control. I’ll tell you off good and proper if you hurt yourself with it. With all the digging I have given you I’ve never hurt you yet – or have I? Perhaps I have sometimes, but not seriously.
You will still be at Limedale while I’m writing this and it’s just after our dinner hour (11.30 on Sundays), which probably means that you will either be helping May with dinner or else perhaps visiting Milly. I wonder just what you are doing? And I wonder, too, if the family is avoiding the usual “Limedale scourge”! Hope so, for your sake. I’m going to be interested to hear your account of what has happened during the weekend. I’ll bet the children have enjoyed it, especially the fair. I only hope that the weather has been decent. Here we have no complaints about the weather until today when we stood for three-quarters of an hour in the rain waiting to get into the pictures inside the barracks. My usual luck held and when I was within arm’s length of the pay box, all ready to slam my threepence down, the P.O. came along with the joyful news that the hall was full. You should have heard the Bronx cheer he got when he advised us to get there early tonight! From this, of course, you will gather we are watch aboard and I’m trying to write intelligently in a mess where, a few yards from me, a young fellow who has been in the Navy for over two years has found a new victim to bore. We are now hearing the whole of his naval career for at least the tenth time in the last week. This involves a full description of his “peculiar” rupture – a very, very special one – and just what he said to the doctor here, and what the doctor said to him and just why he should be a writer, and just why he does not want to go to Cabbala etc etc. There seems to be no end to his ability to recite this piece word for word, day after day, and we have learned that he has turned down an operation because he is afraid it might spoil him for married life. “And I’m courting back home!” he adds naively, from which I gather that the very special rupture, without an operation, has not spoiled his ability in that direction! Shall I develop a very special one? Let me know, pal.
I’m afraid I will have to keep away from the baths, darling. I went for a swim and sunbathe to the pool down by the Hoe yesterday and it played hell with me. I kept looking round at all the fellows with all their girls, frisking in the water, lying out in the sun together and, sweetheart, I thought of you. Precious, I did want you. I wanted you so much that at times I was positively indecent and had to get into the water again! Then, going from the baths to the YMCA for tea, we were surrounded by family parties, man, wife and children, lying basking on the Hoe. I never miss you so much as when I see other people leading quite normal lives. Still, I suppose that’s not for us for a time yet, but I do begrudge having to snatch a week from the war with a feeling that we must cram as much as possible into a few precious days, including oats, and, just as I felt it wrong to rush individual lots of oats, so I felt, in one way, under a sense of compulsion not to miss a single opportunity. I know you’ll understand what I mean. Fancy having the whole of one’s life in front of one, stretching away like a long road to be trodden at an easy, leisurely pace, with time to linger by the way to pluck the delights as one came to them. No sense of hurry, no slight sense of the need to be intoxicated with those delights as quickly as possible, lovely as that intoxication can be. And it can be lovely. Just now, at the mere thought of sitting down on that settee, with you insinuating yourself on the edge, there is a stirring deep down in me. And, by the way, I’m rather worried in case that settee should supplant the armchair in our affections. We can’t allow that, you know. With all due respect to the settee, it’s an interloper. And, while I remember, when are vapours due? I make it about August 5th. Am I right? I’ll be interested, you know!
My God! This lad is starting his naval story all over again, because someone new has come in! Heaven preserve me.
Oh, while I remember, will you try to build up a little store of cigarette papers for me? They are very hard to get hold of here. If you can get some I’ll be glad, but keep them for me until I ask for them.
Well, darling, this is all for today I’m afraid. I’m already looking forward to tomorrow’s letter. All my love, angel. I do love you. Look after yourself for me. My love to the children.
Ever your own,
Arthur X