Wednesday
Devonport
Angel,
I’m miffed! I can’t get on to my usual seat outside the mess because a fellow, so overcome by a dinner of corned beef (jealous?), new potatoes, salad and apple pie, is full length there, fast asleep. It’s annoying because I like sitting in the open air writing to you. The mess is apt to be a bit stuffy this weather and, at the best, it’s far from being inspiring.
No, we didn’t get to the pictures last night. To go to a cinema would have been criminal, so we went down to the front and tried in vain to hire a swimming costume and towel. John Gray, the bloke I was with, even went so far as to ask some other matelots who were just coming out of the baths for the loan of theirs, but they all declined. So we sat for a couple of hours watching other people bathe while we sweltered. A refined form of torture. For nearly half an hour I watched a girl sporting in the water with a fellow she had obviously marked as her man! He kept swimming between her legs and coming up so that both of her legs were around his neck. I did think a lot of you just then and I was really jealous of him. Oh darling, I should so love a day at the seaside – in bathing costumes of course – with you. What a time we’d have. Remember the days at Hoylake and Freshfield? To see you in the water again would be so good. I’d imagine the war was already over.
At that point I had to break off and get back to work. Yes, we really are working just now because so many fellows are on the move. Altogether we have been kept busy this week and the time has gone much more quickly, as it always does when there’s plenty to do. The work isn’t killing – lashing hammocks ready for incoming drafts and taking parcels containing civvy clothes to the station for despatch. I never do the latter without wondering what emotions they will raise in the breast of the woman to whom they are addressed. You will notice that I say “woman”. So far I have only seen about half a dozen addressed to men. But then, I suppose that’s natural, isn’t it?
I have just been reading Jack’s letter. He’s still quite a boy in his enthusiasms, isn’t he? And he never seems to have had any real political sense at all. With his God Save the King attitude, and the “British can beat the Germans with beer bottles” ideas, he’s living right away in the past, but I never regard him as one of the vicious, selfish, right-wing thinkers. I’d like to see him in all his regalia. He certainly looks well in his photograph and I’ll bet he’s proud of his three “pips” as a captain, although by now he’s probably carrying a major’s crown on his shoulder. He’s a good lad and one of the things I’m sorry I’m not going to sea for is that there would have been a good chance of calling at Karachi on my travels and, if nothing else, I might have spoken to him on the phone. That would have given him a real thrill! At the back of my mind I’ve had the hope that if we were in an Indian port for any length of time he might have run down to see me. What a night we’d have had. Can you imagine it?
I suppose that with this war on it will be some years before we can hope to see either of them. Still for all the threat to the Far East, in India they seem largely to be playing at war.
Without being unkind, I was rather amused at Jane’s violent occupations. Still, they are typical. She did much the same in the last war, trying to entertain troops and I know many a soldier – but never a sailor! – spent a happy time at our house. When you are away from home you’re glad of somewhere to go, as I know.
It’s now nearly nine o’clock and I’m finishing this before turning in. We went to the pictures inside the barracks tonight and when we got there found that there was a concert on. We were a bit disappointed as we had hoped to see the Marx Brothers, whom I’ve never seen yet. Pictures or a concert means going without supper but we decided to try it and, for all that it was local talent, it was quite good.
I’m enclosing Howell’s letter because I thought you might be interested, even though you don’t know many of the people mentioned. And while on the subject of letters, yes I did get both of yours when I got here. I think I have asked you before, have you written Jane recently? Try to remember to answer the point, love, as I really must write them a decent airmail letter soon. Airgraphs are alright in their way, but are very brief and a bit too “public”. Will you, at the same time, let me know if you have sent them any snaps? Don’t forget, will you?
Well, sweet, this is about all tonight. All my love, angel. I still love you.
All your very own,
Arthur X
Jul 221942