Tuesday
Chiswick
Sweetheart,
Sorry about this. The leave question is settled and, as we might have expected with my record, we have come out at the bottom of the list, which means leave begins in just about a month’s time – Feb 4. I could kick myself for having buoyed you up with the faintest hope of an early leave because I should, by now, have learned my lesson. There have been so many occasions when I have said that we wouldn’t count on anything until I was on the train for home, that I should have known better than to mention it at all. Actually, it means that under this arrangement I will be a week later than under the old one. When I saw the list on the board I was jumping wild, as you can imagine, more for the effect that it will have on you than anything else.
Although it is only about two hours since we got the news, I have accepted with as good a grace as possible and feel, in one way, relieved that we have at last got some definite news. Beginning on Monday we will have three weeks heavy going in front of us with 48 hours on duty and 24 off but, from my point of view, there are some advantages about the arrangement. One is that with so much to do the time will go quickly – I hope! – and the other is that, while on leave, I won’t be haunted with the feeling that I have got to go back to face a long slogging period of hard work. The only thing we can do now, my angel, is resign ourselves to things as they are for a time, forget all about the calendar at first and only begin to tick off the days as they get within reasonable reach of leave. Another point is that now the suspense is over and we know the worst, you will be able to settle down to the business of building yourself up properly. I hope you are taking your extract religiously still. Are you? Because in another month from now you should be heaps better. I’m trying to find all the good points about this business that I can! One way in which you can help is to make certain that you have vapours between now and Feb 4. You have been such a clever girl in that direction so far that I’m sure you will be able to manage it once again. Keep me informed on this point, won’t you?
Charlie and Jack, who are in the other half of our watch, are the first to go on leave!
Sweetheart, I’m so sorry that you should have this disappointment after you had kept your chin up so well over Xmas. I’m wild that I ever shared my hopes of an early leave with you for, as I say, I should have known better by now. Anyway, I promise you it won’t happen again throughout the whole of this war. I’ll keep all these things to myself in future. And I won’t write you any more “hungry” letters, either, for some time, although I will be wanting you just as badly as ever. I hope the reaction is not too bad, love.
Now I must be off for some dinner and then in to work again. Your letter telling me about the weekend will be waiting for me at home I expect, but I won’t be able to slip home today. Time is too short.
Dot has not been too well for the last couple of days and is going to get the doctor in today, so I suppose she will have a few days off work. She has had one or two attacks of migraine lately and is feeling a bit off colour, I think. Sometimes I have the feeling that running the house and going to business is a bit heavy for her, even though there isn’t a great deal of heavy work to do – and no children to look after, with all their ailments and feeding and clothing worries.
Well, love, I must be off. Try not to imitate the pricked balloon too successfully. I don’t want you to collapse completely! And remember the plans for our first day, like John, still stand! I’m always boasting, aren’t I, but not even this very cold weather can keep him down. When I think of you, he’d melt an igloo. That last sentence sounds like a title of a song, but I’ll present you with the idea. You, no doubt, can develop it – the song I mean, not John!
Bye, my angel, I’m so sorry. Do look after yourself and DO wangle vapours properly. We may yet find that had I got second or third leave part of it would have been “hampered” by vapours.
All my love to you and the children.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
Jan 051943