Sept 8th 1942

Tuesday.

Dear Jim,

            Once again I am writing from the rest camp after another patrol. You will be thinking that this submarine service is all rest camp but that isn’t so. This is my second time here and it is indeed a pleasant change. It is much colder than last time but to me that is really an advantage. It seems strange to walk around for four or five days with nothing to do but to enjoy oneself.

            There was but one letter from you this time in and it was dated May the thirtieth. Of course I have had several before this with later dates. In fact I answered some of them about a month ago. The mails are very infrequent nowadays and I know for certain I have lost some of your letters. I hope you receive most of mine as there isn’t many of them, since I write only about once a month. There is so much I could write about but the censorship allows only a very limited number of subjects and even those are the most uninteresting.

            It is a bit of bad news to hear that you have found it necessary to put the car in storage indefinitely. I’ll bet you missed it most in the long summer evenings. It is a convenience that is very hard to do without and I know most Americans will find it very trying once tyres and petrol are rationed in the States. Cars are considered a necessity not a luxury in the States and most Americans dislike walking even a few blocks if they can ride in their car. It is a standing joke among Yanks that if one strikes bad times one sends one’s wife home to her mother, and if they get worse then one sells the car. At least it is all part of the war effort and anything that will bring the end of the war nearer is to be encouraged. What with rationing and shortages, and all the inconveniences now in England, it must be a sort of Spartan life these days. Talking of rationing here is a bit of a rhyme I saw in a magazine a few days ago;

Queueing for the weekly egg,

Jill fell down and broke her leg:

“What a bit of luck!” cried Jack,

“Suppose she’d fallen coming back!”

A bit ruthless don’t you think?

            Have you received the photographs I sent to you sometime in May? I sent them sea mail so they probable took some time to reach you. I have an old camera of my own and I’ve taken quite a few photographs at different times out here and I hope someday to be able to show them all to you. There is a few that would interest you I know, but I can’t send them thru the mails. Films are fairly easy to get here but are rather expensive and they make a poor job of developing them.

            You were asking me if I had read Auden’s. I’m sorry to say I haven’t. I seem to be getting hopelessly behind with my reading. The only good book I have read since last I wrote is E.F. Benson’s ‘Edward the Seventh’. It was very good I thought. Benson is very modern in his outlook. I read his ‘Dodo’ some time ago but I don’t think it is quite as brilliant as this one. It is odd the sort of literature one picks up out here. A few days ago I was rummaging thru some magazines and came across a copy of Sribner’s Magazine printed in England in 1900! In quite good condition too! There was a short story by J.M. Barrie in it, also a yarn about soldiering in South Africa. All very quaint and interesting.

            Summer will be over in England when you receive this letter, but I suppose there will still be a few fine days here and there to go walking in the country with the dog. The weather has to be very bad to prevent one from enjoying the English countryside.

            Now that I have finished writing about myself I’ll send this off. Hope you are fit and well.

            Please write soon. Thanks for your last one. I’ll be looking forward to the next one.

                        Goodbye until then.

                                                Yours,

                                                            Hugh