Chris in Libya, 1944 MY DEAR BESSIE
Photo Bessie sent to Chris in Libya, 1944
14232134 SIGNALMAN BARKER H.C., BASE DEPOT, ROYAL SIGNALS, MIDDLE EAST FORCES [Tobruk, North Africa]
19 March 1944 Dear Bessie, Here again to greet you, four letters in four days – and really wanting to write four each day. Stupid and silly, but since my thoughts are around you and I am pulsating still, I am going to follow Oscar Wilde’s advice ‘The only way to resist temptation is to succumb to it’. Really, you should reply to me that I am an ass, and that you have been kind enough to burn my words before I want to eat them. But I am sure that you won’t, and that almost for certain you are down with the same ailment, wanting me the same as I want you. … Now to the impersonal part: The Debate [on ‘a woman’s place is in the home’, which Chris was arguing against] took place OK. Everyone was there, forty in all. The proposer was a decent chap, a Scottish signalman. His seconder was a Major, mine was a Lieutenant, jolly good chap, also a Scot. I had heard that my opponent was a good speaker, and I had wondered if I would fail to shine. I need have had no doubts. He had written his speech word for word and read it from the paper, which he held in his hand. I’ve a bad memory, and at present, anyhow, I am more concerned with the possibilities of you. After the almost grim speech of my opponent, I just got up and sparkled. I made them laugh when I wanted them to. I just had them in my hand. I had to eee stop at i fteen minutes, but I could have gone on for i fty. Imagine how cockahoop I was – I was far and away the best speaker there. yyyyyy After all this – and we were overwhelmingly argumentatively ss ss superior – the vote ended 35 for 5 against. In other words, man’s deep prejudice was undisturbed by argument. tttttt This afternoon I visited our hospital, some i fteen miles off. At pp p p p p an exchange a couple of hundred miles away there was a chap ttt t ttt with a very high-pitched voice, just like a nagging wife; I had not ssssss heard him for a couple of days, and on enquiring his whereabouts yyy y yy yy y was told he had collided with a grenade. So I thought I would pay ooooot tttttttt him a visit and cheer him up. He was very lucky, and only got dddddd badly sprinkled with shrapnel. No i ngers or hands off. He is said iiiiii’’’’’’ to be 17 years old. He looks 15. I got a lift (there is a nice ‘taxi’ nnnn] ] ] ]]] spirit on the road here) there in a truck which was taking [a man] to hospital with smallpox. I hope I don’t get it! Chris
26 March 1944
Dear Bessie, This war will delay many marriages as it will cause others. I shall either marry quickly (and take the consequences) or court for about ten years, by which time you’d know your future wife as well as your own mother. Did I mention I’d seen Shadow of a Doubt during the week? It was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, ought to have been good, and for photography and direction, certainly was. (Do you hate or approve Orson Wells – Citizen Kane whirled me round a hundred times, but I believe I bit it, and I liked its different-ness.) My brother was out on a run. As I walked along in the rapidly fading light I saw a familiar slip on the ground, and picked up – an Egyptian pound-note! I hope it came from an ofi cer but I fear that the wind whisked it from a fellow-other-ranker. I was delighted to i nd it (‘Unto them that hath shall be given’) as my brother is always i nding odd coins, notes, valuables. We share luck, and I happily preened myself as I handed him his 10s. just now. The last time I found any large amount was when I was taken as a 9 year old, by my brother, to the AA Sports at Stamford Bridge (I got separated from him in the Underground – those new automatic closing doors were just coming in – remember the guard at the old trellis-pattern gates?). I found a purse, containing 19s. 11d. and a visiting card. My Mother returned it, and with such a horrible ‘you ought to be thankful an honest person found it’ air, that the poor young girl remitted a 5s. reward to me, almost by return post. I always felt the small fortune was a little tainted. How do you get on in the Air Raids? I hope you continue to have good luck. If we were together I guarantee we could ignore them, just as I want to ignore everything now, so that I may touch you. And I want to do that badly. … Tonight Churchill is speaking from London, and I hope to be amongst those who gather round the wireless to hear his latest estimate of the war’s duration. We all take it very goodhumouredly but the language is sometimes lurid. I hope you are well. I am thinking of you. Chris At the back of my mind I have some idea of selling books at a later stage in my life. I would, I think, like to start a second-hand bookshop mainly. It’s not for the money one might make, but only on the basis that books are good things whose circulation must assist reasonableness and progress. What do you think?
5 Feb–2 Apr 2015 THE LIST 29