Thursday
Devonport
Dearest,
The game’s not straight! I’m having to work for my keep these days. We were so busy this morning – we are now waiting for dinner – that nobody noticed it was stand-easy time and we missed our cup of tea. The result is that we are now all famished. For the first hour or so we were busy initiating rookies into the gentle art of slinging and lashing a hammock. I felt sorry for them. They were all between 35 and 39 years of age and one said plaintively that war was hellish! He added he had never had to do a thing for himself before. He’ll learn, of course, and will probably shake down quite well, but it’s funny to be called “sir” by these blokes. There was a bit of a rush to get them kitted up as they are going to HMS Caballa tomorrow, as I should have done, of course, if it had not been for this other change-over. In some ways I’m beginning to regret not going through as a coder. I should have been going from here tomorrow. While life is not really hard, it’s a bit depressing in barracks. After helping with the hammocks I got the job of punching 20 fellows’ names on three brushes and two pairs of boots. By the time I got to the 72nd boot I was fed to the teeth, as you may well imagine. Still, it’s not hard work – just boring.
I have just had word that I have to report to the dentist at 9.30 tomorrow morning so it looks as if my teeth have arrived. I suppose they will be carried a stage further here and then I’ll go on draft again, with the result that I’ll have to wait again while they chase me all over the country again. What a life!
By the way, have you been catching a later post with your letters lately, because now I get them on the evening delivery whereas I used to get them on the mid-day delivery. Not that it matters a great deal so long as I do get them, but the first day that happened I thought you had forgotten me!
So you have turned tailoress? Nice work, love. What a pity you were never able to get the shuttle for that other machine. It looks almost as if you had bought a pig-in-a-poke, doesn’t it? How would I go about replacing it for you? Would I have to have the number and make of the machine, or the old shuttle, or what? God knows where I will get to in the course of my travels about the country and there is always just the chance I might drop across the sort of place where I could pick one up for you. I intended mentioning it when I was at home and it slipped my memory. You could save such a lot of work and money if that was in full running order. Where you probably jib now at the thought of sewing things by hand, you would probably get them done in no time on a machine. Anyway, let me know what you think the chances are and I’ll see if I can do anything.
How are the children behaving, and has Michael fully recovered from his spell of “sickening for something”? I hope for your sake that the improvement in his temper has been maintained. It’s such a strain to be continually battling with the two of them. Nothing wears you out more quickly.
I knew I meant to tell you something. I am doing my best to get hold of a second-hand hammock for the garden. Don’t rely on it, but if I can get one I’ll either send it on or bring it with me when I come home. The trouble is that they are such bulky things to pack in the post. Anyway, it will probably be some time before I can get hold of one and they are rather short in supply just now.
About my cold – no, I didn’t bother going to the sick bay. That’s a full day’s job just now, from what I can see, but my cold has gone now. So much so that I only took two of those aspirins I brought away with me. Cigarettes no longer have that horrible taste and my cough has disappeared. So everything’s Jake.
I’ll look through the papers I brought from Aberdeen and see if I have that tax paper, but I thought I sent it home with some other papers. Perhaps I’m wrong. I’ll certainly not get out of paying it, even if it is left until after the war. The government has too good a memory!
Hope you have a nice weekend at Limedale. My love to May and the family. I’ll answer the other points in your letter tomorrow as I’m in a hurry to catch the evening post.
Sorry to be so abrupt in ending, but if I don’t get this away now it will never get the post. Bye angel. All my love.
Ever,
Arthur X
Jul 231942