I have no idea when, or if, this letter will reach you, but there is the tiniest of chances that it will. I’ll have to keep it short – what I need to say is that I love you and miss you dreadfully. You are with me every day, which is a benediction and a curse: benediction because your lovely memory has kept me more or less sane over the last few months, and curse because it is only a reflection of someone unimaginably more beautiful who lies very far away from me and, for the moment, quite out of reach. But I’ll make do with the memory, for now at least.

That doesn’t seem to have taken up too much room, so I will give you all the news from my end of things. If the writing is a little bit stiff and if you decide I’m not saying very much, well, I’m afraid this is an army letter and army letters, by definition, are cheerful and boring. But I’ll do my best. Here goes! After I left you, we got to Euboea with no trouble at all, and then on to a big fishing caique which took us, by fits and starts, across to (unbelievably) Smyrna, which is now İzmir and as Turkish as any place I can imagine. There were other British soldiers there and we had to cool our heels for almost two months so I did a lot of exploring, but I’m afraid I couldn’t find any real sign of the grandeur you described so lovingly. From there we got back to Egypt and the war. There was a big battle a little while ago and I managed to get myself wounded. Don’t worry: I’m fine. I wasn’t in the hospital very long and they treated me like royalty so, all in all, I’ve been quite lucky. I know you told me to be careful but it’s rather difficult to be absolutely careful here (without people talking behind your back!) and of course it’s my job. Meanwhile, it looks as if I will be going home to England soon for training. I can’t tell you what for. But it is exciting and there is a chance that it might bring me closer to you.