Calderon had only been separated from Kittie three days, but was missing her. Yesterday was a Saturday.
My servant wanted to go up to see his wife; I thought of my old ‘ooman with a tearful sigh, and told him to stay as long as the regulations allowed. The Colonel’s gone too and left the big dogged bullocky fellow named ‘Beef’ in charge; he’s the second in command; he’s Lord Tweedmouth. I feel rather out of it not being the Marquis of anything or having three chargers and a motor car; but daresay it will come right in the end. I’m a good deal alone, of course, being a new boy — even in the mess-tent.
He closed his letter yesterday with a list of things he needed (a sponge, 2 or 3 safety pins, an electric torch, a ‘cocoa-brick’), and the words ‘With greatest love’.
Kittie was right to worry about him and too much solitude: he was prone to plummeting depression in such circumstances, and on one occasion on Tahiti had almost suffered a nervous collapse. But today, Sunday, he wrote to her that he felt ‘robuster’ and ‘more at home here’. He covered three small sides with a list of more things he wanted her to buy and send down to him, some of them equestrian equipment, but closed with what seems a sudden development: ‘I’ve got my little pigeonhole on the letter-stand now, labelled “2nd Lieut. Calderon”.’ So although ‘only’ an interpreter, he had a foot on the military ladder.
Next entry: The thickness of events…
