My Dear Bessie (25 page)

16 April 1945

My dear private and family matter,

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. – Don't just read and pass on. Please read this reiteration carefully and hear me saying it. Blow me, I
am
mournful at the thought of our distance. It seems so absurd, so wrong, so impossible that only a little while ago we were together and now we are apart. We were settled down to writing to each other, before, but now – what can I write? I can't help having a cheated feeling, and not much interest in anything else but you. Before, I loved you, my idea of you. But now, I have seen, heard, touched, smelt the living warmth and flesh of you. I was moved by you, and inside me still there's the new kind of knowing whirr which newly and more strongly unites us.

Guards and parades cause me to worry very greatly. If they occur (Guards) once every ten days, I shall spend five apprehensive days preparing and five days recovering. We had our first real parade today, up at 6, frantic preparations, and passed off OK as far as I was concerned. The inspecting officer checked each of us for some error we were supposed to have – collars undone, medals awry, belts too high or too low, and so on. But although I am terrorised and find it an ordeal, he was not ungentlemanly, and that was most welcome. We had about a half-hour's drill afterwards, not with our rifles, which we simply carried (and nearly broke our arms), and although I was always on the wrong foot, my misdemeanours went undetected, and my life of crime continues.

On Saturday, I saw
Thank Your Lucky Stars
(Eddie Cantor, E.E. Horton, Bette Davis), a lot of nonsense, badly projected. The religious influence in this country is sickeningly real and obvious; it is maddening to see the priests walking along the streets. Yesterday we went for a walk, down the road which leads to the nearest town. We said ‘Bonner Sarah' (that is the pronunciation) to four women sitting on a wayside seat. They were chanting hymns, replied similarly, and then continued chanting as we walked on.

I think of you getting up, going to the station, getting to Charing Cross, walking back from Park Lane in the evening. I try hard to imagine the grandness of you, at long distance. I hope you are not feeling too bad, my darling, my love, my dearest. I'm not so good, myself.

I love you.

Chris

28 April 1945

My Dearest,

I returned to camp yesterday evening, after having had a very nice little run-round. Within a couple of hours, along came the mail, your arms were around me, and I was with you.

One subject in your letter cards I must comment on. The question of being ‘afraid'. If you read my LC from Greece again you'll see in what connection I used it. I was afraid of marrying you, not because of my ‘trouble' (which you rate low, and anyhow is your responsibility now), but because, at all times mortal, in war, man takes more risks than usual. I do not want to marry until I am sure that only natural causes (including your cooking!) can separate us. Lying on my stomach in the dark cold night, with the ELAS banging away at us, I realised with clarity that we have no automatic assurance of life together until both wars, German and Jap, are over. I do not want to leave a widow (perhaps with a child) behind to mourn me. It is bad to mourn at all, but it is (in my understanding) much worse to mourn as a wife than as a sweetheart.

Marriage provides certain conveniences, but I do not think they were large enough to make it worthwhile for a month. As you say, we are together, anyway. I wondered if I should marry you, and you should marry me, in order ‘to be sure' of each other. But the more we were together I thought (I was right?) I saw you understanding that you could be sure of me, and that you knew I believe in you as absolutely essential to my future. Four of our Section chaps married this leave. I do not see that now they are any closer to their wives than I am to you. Marriage would have perhaps been a conventional act. But I rather ponder whether it isn't a greater achievement to love one another as we do without having any legal tie. I hope you really have no regrets about not being Mrs Barker just at present. I have spent about 25,000 miles on the sea this war, and been under fire for 30 hours without hurt.
I think I shall return OK, and I shall return to you, as fully and completely as if we were married.

I know that this separation is worse for you. I cannot convey by words the mounting need for you, the extra rottenness of being apart, the greater unbearability of separation, the growing love, the ‘more and more and more' tumult that rages now that I have seen and touched and approved you in person. To think that we have touched! What luck I have had, to awaken to you at last, and to find you still ready. I hope you will find the time pass quickly – already it is nearly five weeks since we parted – I know that you will remember the way I have looked, and the enchantment we experienced together when our flesh touched. I think of you, and try to reach you, always.

I love you.

Chris

28/29 April 1945

Dearest,

You say I said enough while on leave. I am disgusted how little I said, about ourselves, and about my impressions of ‘life abroad' and the Army. I am not very happy about my deficiencies as a sweetheart – I think I teased you too much. I should have been on my knees before you, confessing my utter dependence on you, imploring
your interest though I may seem to have it, telling you always that without the hope of you, I should starve and thirst. I could have been so much more eloquent, yet my stutterings satisfied you. I am sorry we wasted those five nights at Bournemouth, it seems to be beside the point that there will be many many more.

I am sorry about the error of judgement regarding salmon. I'll catch a whale for you on my return journey.

I hope you are getting on alright with your spring-cleaning. Personally, I think far too much is made of this event. A properly run house would be ashamed to admit it needed a really good clean-up once a year. It is a suburban blight. But you enjoy yourself, don't mind me.

I have the same ‘you have always been there' feeling, too. I seem to have grown up with you, and loved you since we first met. Certainly I have strong upon me the happy thought that you ‘always will be there'. The future, once the war is over, lies entrancingly before us.

Have I said something wrong about sleeping bags? I am not wanting to have a solitary wedded life, of course I'm not. Re single beds, I was thinking earlier (you know how we write letters to each other with each passing moment, and how we forget the ‘really good' things, when we come to pen and paper) that I would suggest to you that if your sheets on your present bed wear out in the next year, it would be a good idea to buy double to replace them, then the sheets would be OK for our own bed. Of course I want to spend all my time as physically close to you as possible, just as I am happy at our mental closeness. Really, didn't you think that toward the end of the leave we had settled into such a good
understanding? I am sure you could fit into a sleeping bag, but it would be a tight squeeze – a grand tight squeeze I daresay!

I am glad you are going to my home. Mother and Rosie have mentioned you phoning, in their letters. I am very unhappy at my Dad's condition. My Mother is having a very bad time. My Dad is complexity itself. I hope he pulls through his difficulties, which I believe are more mental than physical, poor old boy.

No, I didn't notice a lot of complaint from you about your cold. We can't have two martyrs in the
family
, and as I also make a fuss of any ailment, am afraid you will have to be the tough one! I say, what a pity I didn't apply that vapour rub.

Don't think I have the slightest objection to ‘Darling'. I think I cautioned against its use when third persons were present. Probably I was shy. So do, please, call me anything you like. I shall like it, too. Sorry the picture frame wasn't a success.

Last night I was on guard, and thought of you sleeping peacefully, while I patrolled the almond trees and listened to the barks of distant dogs, and the ‘perlip, perlip' and ‘whirrip whirroo' of the birds around here. A feeling was with me that distance doesn't matter.

In one of your letters you say your heart beats within me. That is good. I will look after your heart. Please always try to be happy because of future prospects, rather than sorrowful because of present separation.

I love you.

Chris

2 May 1945

Dearest,

I had just addressed the front [of the envelope] when someone called out ‘News Flash', we all rushed to the tent with the wireless, and heard the announcement that the German armies in Italy had surrendered unconditionally. Coming on the same day as the 7 a.m. announcement (which I heard) that Hitler was reported dead, it gave us a certain extra elation and hope that other Germans will also surrender rather than make it necessary for our chaps to get killed unnecessarily. We have again been warned that sobriety is expected of us when the great announcement is made. For us, I don't expect the change to mean anything except more spit, and more polish, more parades, more guards, more sickening routine and regulation.

[Continued 3 May 1945]

I am very glad that the rockets have finished. What is it like to be able to go unthinkingly to bed, and to know you will be undisturbed? I wish I had not been windy of the rockets, it ‘stunted' my actions and chained me down.

Your comments about my greatness over my Greek experiences are very welcome, but they are by no means correct. I am not a great man nor have I ever behaved like one. I am a very little man, with his ear close to the ground.

I hope you
will
buy clothes. Don't wait for my approval – you have it in advance. You should beware of a clothing shortage and buy normally. It is also by no means certain that the items will remain at their present low prices. If the profiteers win, things will go ‘up and up and up' alright. It is not ‘saving for the future' to denude yourself or deplete a modest wardrobe. Carry on, and buy, and if you want to save, consider again the smoking habit. I thought of an idea. Suppose you smoke 20 a day now, carry on smoking 20 each day for a week, then smoke 19 each day. At the end of that week, reduce to 18 for the next seven days, and so on. It would take nearly six months to reduce to nothing, but it might be the way out, to slowly slide away from it. You say you wish you were thoughtful like me – well, I'm not thoughtful, only artful! I think we'll rub along together very well indeed. I feel fairly certain we both have sufficient intelligence not to try to make the other unhappy.

All this morning I have been helping to shift scenery in the dirty little theatre (Teatro Mercadante) of this town, in preparation for an Italian Variety Show, which I expect I will see tonight. Backstage was even dirtier than the front, though more interesting, hauling on ropes to bring scenes down, shifting pianos, and so on. Quite a change from the putting up (rather than use the slick word ‘erecting') of tents and barbed wire, in which campaign I have gained several cuts and blood blisters on my hands. The weather here is rainy, and it is dismal to hear it pattering down on the tent roof, when you have just moved from a waterproof building. It is very cold in the morning, particularly as I only wear my rompers (overalls) during the
working day. I think of you always. I love you always. I need you always.