Saturday
Chiswick
Sweetheart,
Well, love, how now? Another weekend gone by the time you get this and only two more to go! I’m glad you feel that laggard time is at last moving along a bit and in case you feel it will help I’m enclosing a list of our duties so you can tick them off if you want to and then you will also know just which duty I’m on. If at any time you should want to reach me urgently – and I hope you won’t – you can wire me at work. The address is (with service rank and not “Mr”, of course) c/o Admiralty W/T Station, Whitehall, London SW1. You can write me there if you want to on the second days on duty because I don’t go home at all those days.
It cheered me up no end to hear that the nurse thought you looked better and also to hear of your cheerful outlook on Thursday. From that part of your letter I feel the cheerful spring note and almost see the early spring sun on the allotment. I’m glad you have started out there again and that you have started because you WANTED to and not because you felt you ought to. So you have been really sensible and taken things easily? I’m so glad and glad too that you feel some benefit from it. Keep going on in that way and things will go well.
I will do all I can in the plot when I get home so some time before I do get home will you let me have some of your ideas on the subject, with a little plan to illustrate where you want things. Will you also decide whether or not you are going to have potatoes or not? And if so whether you will have them on Russell’s plot to try to clear that more thoroughly of weeds and wireworms, or whether you would sooner have them on the left-hand side of our plot? I want to get a mental picture of the work to be done throughout the spring. In the short time available I won’t be able to make a great impression on it and, in fact, the whole of the land that is free should have been turned over when I was home last. Do you think that before I come you could, in easy stages, crush the mothballs down to a fine powder – or as fine as possible – so that I can get it on some of the ground to clear some of the pests out? Will you also make some inquiries about manure from both Betty and Neville? We want to lay hands on all we can so that you won’t feel stinted. I rather think that some of the disappointing results you suffered may have been due to insufficient food for them. If the weather is anything like decent I’ll have a good go at it and also get the manure if you make the arrangement beforehand. If, however, you feel that you can get a supply in by getting one of the lads in the road to cart it, so much the better. The ideal method, of course, would be to persuade Neville to deliver a decent load one day while I’m home! I wonder if you could manage that?
I feel a lot better for getting all those queries and suggestions off my mind, where they have been lying for about a fortnight now, probably because of the mild weather we have had here. How does your weight compare with normal? It’s good to see a move in the right direction but I’d like you to keep on putting on weight for some time. Have your legs filled out again? You gave me a dreadful shock that day I moved you to Limedale and I do hope you are filling out a lot. A full stone won’t hurt you. You’re not built on Chris’s lines, you know, and will never run to fat so there is no need to worry on that score.
I got the tobacco from Limedale today, so let May know, will you, until I get a chance to drop a line.
I do know how you felt about your vision of that day of days, Feb 5. So far as I am concerned I expect the last 48 hours will crawl by on leaden feet and I know the 3am to 9am watch will be sheer murder. Still, we have some time to go before we reach that stage!
Sunday
There is not a great deal of fresh news today. I have not been home so I did not get up until about 10 o’clock after tossing and turning in my bunk for a couple of hours. I seem to find some difficulty in getting off to sleep on this particular watch, possibly because when we finish at 3am there’s no chance of getting a breath of fresh air before we turn in. In addition to that we were absolutely mad busy. One of the fellows here says that in the two years he has been on the station he has never seen such a load of work. By a peculiar chance I have had a good deal of the heaviest stuff and for seven solid hours I sat typing away with never a break of more than two or three minutes to reel up the tapes. The last two or three watches have been the same. It’s not due to the three watches, it’s just a coincidence but the great advantage is that the time fairly flies past.
I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s post because I’m hoping that the photographs may arrive then. I do hope Wendy’s hair wasn’t like a mop of straw and her stockings down round her ankles as she usually has them!
By the way, have you made inquiries about the panto? Wendy asked specifically for ‘Cinderella’. Is that the Empire panto? Or was it one of the three usually run by the Pavilion? If it looks doubtful whether there will be a show when I’m home, will you take them? I should hate them to miss it through me.
Well, sweet, I don’t think there is a great deal more to say, except that I love you still and that it is now less than three weeks to the day when I’ll be able to show you just how much. Take good care of yourself until then, and then I’ll be able to take care of you for a few days.
All my love, angel.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
P.S. I feel so full of beans that I’m just waiting to see what is going to take the smile off my face! Something usually does.
Jan 161943