D -59

Chad picture with Wot!  In the fifties?

Major P.C. Benham,

G Branch

HQ 1 Corps District

BAOR

Monday 14^th January

7.15 pm.

My own most precious darling,

Just a quick 15 minutes before I must go down to dinner with 4 others who – with yours truly will be sitting down afterwards to a short (I hope) poker session.  My first game for simply ages.  I was absolutely thrilled this morning when two wizard letters arrived from you – written on Wednesday and Thursday – poor old darling, I can well imagine your general can’t-settle-down-to-anything mood – to have to live alone in the flat after that fortnight of heaven, must be perfectly bloody – but it isn’t for long now and you will, I hope, never again have to be there all by yourself.  Many thanks for sending Kens letter on – as a Lt Col I can quite imagine his getting that fantastic sum a month – he gets staff pay, tropical allowance, field allowance, wife and two children, so I’m not altogether surprised, it soon mounts up, as the actress said to the Bishop.  I have duly noted the payment of £29/10/- for chest-of-drawers and your green ‘un will be with you any time now.  Now, my darling, with the humblest possible apologies I must break away, but I’ll be right back with you ere long.  Au revoir, angel.

11.15 pm       I announced my intention before we started of stopping at 11 ocl (they still had 5) and at 11 ocl exactly I stopped – the first hour saw me getting no good cards at all, but for the last hour I could hardly put a foot wrong, only on very average hands, and I eventually won 15/6^d – not too bad.  I felt a slight closet stopping when I was up but I had announced my intention of packing in, win or lose, at a certain time, and having done that it is no good either way to go on beyond the limit.

Darling I was sorry though not surprised to hear that it had appeared again – if it hadn’t it couldn’t really have come at a worse time, so in many ways it is a good thing, but what you will not realise is that there is nothing wrong in that respect with either you or I – if April 1^st 44 had never happened I might conceivably have been tempted to lose faith, I very much doubt it though, but after that it is absolutely 100% sure proof that what has happened can happen, and will happen again, there are so very many factors involved, and if all the circumstances are right then the answer will be what happened then, and you will not get those factors automatically on leaves etc.  you see, your argument breaks down at once when you say that nothing happened for two years when it might have done, but when did you have that operation in Edinburgh?  Not until just before I went to Africa, and it’s efficacy was well proved by later events, showing quite clearly that it did the trick – no, darling, I can’t agree with you on that score, and I would only ask you to search your heart and ask yourself whether the words you used that ‘children aren’t worth the trouble etc’ didn’t come from your head and not from your heart.  I know you well enough, darling, to know that they weren’t true and never will be.  Now, my most dearly beloved girl, with the thought of you and that historic telephone call in only 50 odd days time, uppermost in my thoughts, with your happiness come what may, my only concern, I must away to bed.  God bless you, my sweetheart, and keep you, just as you are, always – I love you so terribly terribly much, and will

            for always be yours

                        only yours,

                        Peter

In envelope headed ‘O A S’ addressed to Mrs Peter C Benham, 9 Vint Crescent Colchester Essex.

Postmarked FIELD POST OFFICE 734 dated 115 JA 46.  Signed P.C. Benham. 

On front of envelope 14 Jan.