Dearest Renie,
Monday at 2am! What an hour to choose for writing! However it’s my only spare time this weekend, and I’ll try not to fall asleep over it!
I hope you are keeping well, not letting long working hours tire you out too much, eating well and not waiting too long in queues for anything.
Don’t know what’s wrong with the mail this week, they are certainly hanging us about; no mail from you for about five days, it seems ages; even poor old Harry, hasn’t heard from his wife for three weeks, and is properly browned off. No doubt it’s because the nearer aerodromes are shut down, so we’ll just have to be patient, how is it at your end? Usually much better going out than coming in.
By the time this reaches you, I’ll probably be on my way to Perugia, that’s next Saturday. My English course has eventually come through, I’m quite keen to go, and looking forward to getting away for a month or so. They say it’s very nice there; the army has taken over the university for its education scheme, one of the best in Italy. Bologna owns another. Our education officer says they ‘put you through it’, but I’m not afraid of that, it will be a change to study instead of the dull routine of a kitchen. Write as usual won’t you Renie? Your letters will be forwarded on, in a day or so difference, and I’m sure to find somewhere quiet, even tho’ it won’t be a kitchen, to write to you. I hope my letters are coming through OK.
Are you very busy? Tell me more about yourself, seen any good shows? And is it still very hot, and too many visitors? How’s the painting going? I’ll wager anything, that you haven’t done a stroke towards it? What you need at ‘Devonia’ is a strong useful cousin to take those jobs in hand! I’m very good at those sort of jobs, for about an hour, then I like the rest of the day off, while the paint dries!
What sort of garden have you? Don’t tell me, full of overgrown weeds, and last year’s cabbage all gone to seed? And just one or two poor little flowers? You must think me very sarcastic.
Well Renie, there isn’t really very much to write about, nothing much has happened since I last wrote. My first week has flown by, had quite a surprise yesterday morning to realize it was Sunday, so I had to stay up until nine as I wanted to attend communion. Am ashamed to say, I didn’t know what the collect, or gospel was about, I was so tired, was trying to keep wide awake but wonder I didn’t fall asleep over my prayer book, wonder why one’s mind wanders so much when very tired, perhaps it’s the thought of bed at the back of the mind that keeps leading one’s thoughts astray.
We have a new padre, the one from Bournemouth has gone away. The new one appears to be very decent, but he has gone on ‘liap’ today. About twenty fellows went today, so that’s roughly 50 from the unit on leave. The ‘local’ week’s leave has been stopped; there wouldn’t have been enough fellows to work in the hospital. Twenty sisters went yesterday, volunteered for India, but as the Jap war looks like ending soon they may not go.
We thought the far East war was really over, this week. In fact several chaps were drunk on the strength of it, they drink for any pretext, today even, several were tight, because their pals went on leave, nice brotherly feelings, but why on Earth they have to get so drunk beats me, I hate to see it. Thank God that’s not one of my weaknesses, it is a rotten thing. We had a little cook, he had a little moustache and looked like Hitler, who always had a bottle tucked away somewhere, and was constantly missing in the scullery, with head up and vino down, quite an agreeable chap, but always in a cafe, he was good natured too, not bad like some are, and would do anyone a good turn, he always stuttered when tight, as though his brain couldn’t work quickly enough. You may think I live in bad company Renie, but on the whole they are very decent fellows, we all get on well together. Little ‘Mac’ is bow legged and about five feet tall, when its fried eggs for breakfast I put a box for him to stand on! And he takes it in very good fun.
We have had some laughs too, as well as our ‘slavery’, in Africa. Our last Christmas there, I believe every cook was absolutely drunk, even the night cooks were frying eggs and giving them to everybody! The only ‘bad’ incident was a Scotchman who became annoyed and began to throw 7lbs tins of margarine about! We had to put him outside to sleep it off. ‘Pop’, an old boy of nearly fifty, with a big tummy, used to get tighter and tighter and gradually slip off his chair on to the floor, I caught him many times only just in time! Talk of Wallace Beery in his ‘bad men’ films, that’s nothing to our ex-cooks, most of them are away with other units now, and we have a respectable crowd now.
Poor old ‘Pop’, though, I slept in his tent for a while, he talked himself to sleep and during the night would hear imaginary noises and rats in his bed, and wake the whole place up in his confusion.
One last word about cooks, when little ‘George’ was drunk, he ground his teeth in the most alarming manner, just as though he was eating bottles. He’s discharged now, and back in England. He was drunk on the train, someone saw him in Rome, he was still drunk, he has a very young wife about twenty, poor kid, she will have a bad time if he continues like it.
‘Mickey’, my old sergeant, now home in Belfast, a butler-chef, in civvy life, was my pal, he wrote this week, we were together in France with the BEF, and I remember him cooking fowls for the officers as we retreated via Dunkerque. He’s 48, nearly bald but quite a gentleman, never swore until he was made a sergeant when he seemed to go a bit like the rest, but eventually came to his senses. He made friends with everybody, even with the Italians. He was extremely popular, as with the French in Africa, one could see him giving out with a little bit of something tucked away in his tunic, a severe risk to take, but he was always lucky, or blessed! So I expect you hope I won’t be made a sergeant if they all swear, eh?
‘Harry’ is about my best friend now. He’s genuine, and very kind, but very noisy and sometimes rough. He always has too much to say, we are always telling him so, and sometimes the things he says are a bit hurtful, when however you tell him this, he says “Oh well! The truth always hurts”! So what can you do with a fellow like that? He’s very clever at making anal noises, and keeps us in fits sometimes. We now have two Indian cooks, both coal black, one has a double thumb with two nails, in their white coats they look very funny, they look up to Harry as the ‘big white chef’ which we think very funny too. Some of the Indian patients are Moslems, this month is ‘Ramavin’ (something like that) they only eat after sundown, so for a month the orderlies find them very troublesome. We seem to be having quite a number of ‘psycho’ Indians in lately, and they have to be drugged at night because they would otherwise keep every other patient awake. One of them got out of the ward and was wandering around the passages in his pyjamas looking for ‘Maynga’, the kitchen! Perhaps he was hungry.
There haven’t been so many accidents lately. A yank came in with concussion tonight, the first for several nights. The other night an officer drove 180 miles to visit a sister here, 360 miles for his girl, he must have been very fond of her. That’s what an officer can do, couldn’t do it on the basic ration at home! We have a Russian girl in one of the wards but haven’t been able to see her, believe she’s only 15, goodness knows what she is doing here. The sergeant, I told you about says he’s going to marry the Italian girl, well, perhaps he knows best, but I think there are still some worthwhile girls at home, isn’t that so?
It’s now nearly four, have been writing for nearly an hour and a half, must dash around now to finish my night’s work, catching the post at 8 o’clock.
Please give my love to Auntie, looking forward very much to your next letter, to hear how you are, and so – - keep smiling, don’t work too hard,
With fondest love,
Eric
