My Dear Bessie (36 page)

For breakfast this morning at a wayside halt we again had fried egg! The Germans at these halts have done very well, clean cooking and tables. The last halt was called ‘The Gothic Grill', a strange compliment to them.

The train is going now, and my news is little. I am still at the game of guessing ‘what we were doing this time last week'. I think of you.

I love you.

Chris

2 December 1945

We are now in Southern Italy, about twenty miles from Naples. The sun is shining, it is beautifully warm after the cold of the last week, and around us is – scatterings of orange peel. Oranges can be bought for about 1½d. each, or, more usually, changed for cigarettes. In great demand by the peasants is bread, etc., an indication of their very real need. You can imagine with what glee we exchange our Army pattern Sausage Roll for a luscious orange.

I lost my toothbrush at Calais, and left my hat in one of the feeding centres en route. Will be pleased to get in a town and
secure some replacement. A sad occurrence befell one of our chaps: he put his kitbag on the Bari pile at the start, instead of the Naples lot. He had put all his kit, except his eating utensils, in it, and had his birthday cake (icing and all!) for December 9th in it. Whether and when he will get it is very uncertain.

8 p.m. I am now in a Transit Camp in Napoli – the same one I was in when there was a terrific storm, on my way to Perugia; formerly a park. As usual we are nobody's baby. We are ten to a tent underneath the trees. I successfully discovered and lugged to the tent an iron bedstead, in which I shall repose tonight. A chap has given me a hat, so my pate is now covered. I have bought a toothbrush, so my teeth now feel lovely and clean.

I have just had two cups of coffee and two sugary doughnut rings in the NAAFI – and appreciated them. True, I consumed them standing, but they were good. I shall have to get you on making doughnut rings. Did I tell you I thought you were a jolly good cook and that I thoroughly enjoyed every munching moment? I love you. I daresay I would do if you were silly and useless – but it is such a consolation and satisfaction to know you are not. My beautiful, capable woman.

I love you.

Chris

In Naples, December 1945

8 December 1945

My Darling,

Once again we have been disappointed, and we are still here. How long it will last, blowed if I know. It is cold and unpleasant and Bari, a little further South, sounds good to me. I haven't had a real night's sleep since I came here – in fact since I left 27.

I went into Naples this afternoon and had intended going to
For Whom The Bell Tolls
this evening. But, as has been happening a lot lately, the electric light failed all over the town, and the cinema was in darkness. So we came back to camp and consumed yet more of the cakes that inevitably cannot be resisted, yet are so sickeningly indicative of our Army-ness. We came back in the rear of a tram which was full to capacity – which in Italy means full to capacity. One of the Italians dropped a cigarette on the floor, tried to bend down and look for it, an almost impossible task. When he got a chance, he had a look for it but couldn't find it, so accused a neighbour of pinching it! Started fighting but had to stop as he wanted to get off.

I am sorry about this scrap of a letter. I am in a somewhat ‘suspended' state at the moment, and can only hope I shall recover something of my zest when I am with my unit, instead of messing around in this cold hole. I hope you are feeling OK but I am pretty sure you are feeling as sick as I am, though fortunately your bed is warmer! But the time is passing. The great consoling thought. Excuse this scrap.

I love you.

Chris

10 December 1945

My Darling Bessie,

I see from the papers that it has been very cold at home.

I observe that Charlton did well on Saturday. I suppose that Wilf is just about to start work by the time you get this letter. The demob figures seem very encouraging, no slackening and everything in hand. I feel fairly hopeful about getting out in time to have a good-weather holiday with you somewhere. I was glad to see that 100,000 chaps were called up in the last four months and 140,000 are to be called up in the first half of '46. I think the wrong chaps are being called up, though. We are getting boys of 18-and-a-half who have only been in the Army a few months. There is no doubt that the Army will mould them the wrong way. If they called them up at 25–30, it would be better. Blow me, that is as clear as coalite! I think that the influence of the Army has been mostly for the good on me – but there are thousands of chaps now aged 24–5, who have grown up in the Army and have little conception of civilian standards, or individual responsibility.

We are hoping really to get somewhere tomorrow, as we went along to the Orderly Room and again reminded them that we were here and wanted to AVANTI, and we have been told to see them again tomorrow at 8.30. We are all in a state with our socks, etc., but determined not to change anything till we get a possibility of a change.

Mail is our main desire. It is over a fortnight since we left England. I am feeling better now than I did then, because
I well understand that every day is counting towards my release.

We have to collect our 7 free issue cigarettes each morning between 7–8. If we don't go, we lose them. I haven't lost any, but you can imagine how many cigarettes are ‘made' by the chap whose job it is to give them out. Three chaps in my tent never go for them, and at 9s. for 20 to the Italians, the Quartermaster must be making a fortune. How are your efforts at reduction, pal? Am afraid the ‘ciglets' were not a great success, but who knows what may come of such an idea? I think I'll start up a Company, ‘Halve Your Smoking', and put that invention forward!

I love you.

Chris

14 December 1945

My Dear Wife,

This morning at 10 o'clock saw us all with our kit, outside the departure hut, ready to move off.

We proceeded to a place called PORTICI, 6 miles from the centre of Naples, along the ‘autostrada' (the fine road which connects the city with Pompeii). The Unit Headquarters are situated in a building near there, and I am (hooray) sleeping in the building tonight.

The RSM [regimental sergeant major] has asked me since the first querying if I have had experience of acquittance rolls (pay
sheets) and I have told him ‘yes' (I have – at Whetstone where I did Pay Clerk), whether I was used to money, and I said ‘yes', and if I had ever been Post Corporal, to which I said I was in the PO. He says he will try to get me a job as Assistant to the Group 28 Post Corporal, who also is Pay Clerk for the soldiers and Italian civil labour. If I do get the job I think I shall be fairly happy for the present, as the food here is very good indeed, and that is a large consideration in the Army (for tea today, our first meal, we had tomato soup, and a salad – well served – of a nice slice of corned beef, cheese, and cold peas and beetroot. There was a piece of cake, as well as usual jam, etc. The bread was very thin, a great change, and the plates are supplied by the Army and don't need to be washed by the men). Our job for the next few days is to clean out a house in the village which is being turned into an Officers' Mess, and to shift furniture and so on.

As this unit maintains the big aerodromes at Bari, Foggia, Naples (Pomigliano this one is called) and Rome, I cannot see the unit breaking up for a long while, and probably my Army days will be concluded around these parts. Naples is horrible, the wretches who inhabit it are worse. Out here it is not so bad, because there is some foliage (the trees in the orange orchards have their bright yellow gifts sparkling upon them now) and (unlike Bari and Foggia) the landscape is not wholly, monotonously flat.

I changed my socks – after 19 days! They are black as anything, but I hope to get them washed sometime. So now I feel quite spruce – though I am still wearing Wilfred's shirt. If you care to lecture me, carry on. I will get young Solly to answer it –he is still in the same socks the 'erb!

Three or four children have just looked in here, to pick up half-eaten cakes left on plates. All are thinly-clad. One has no shoes or socks on. Poor little soul. In this weather, and wet underfoot, it must be very bad.

I love you.

Chris

17 December 1945

My Darling Bessie,

A year ago this morning we were attempting to assess the damage done by the first night's attack on the Hotel Cecil. The smoke of battle was in the air. This morning there was another smoke in the air. Acrid; sulphuric – from Vesuvius, which was puffing it out very liberally at breakfast-time, but has ceased at present. There is always plenty of notice of any eruptions, so don't get alarmed.

At the Transit Camp I glanced at a copy of
Married Love
by Marie Stopes (which was being read from a most unscientific angle by some Infantry lads with us). It might help our ignorance. There is a table in it showing the ups and downs of desire in a woman. If you think it would be useful, you might like to get it.

[Incomplete]

19 December 1945

My Darling,