To the Letter - Simon Garfield

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a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. Let us leave the road while we can still see, I said, ‘or we shall be knocked down and trampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.’ We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a closed room. You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore . . . I could boast that not a groan or cry of fear escaped me in these perils, had I not derived some poor consolation in my mortal lot from the belief that the whole world was dying with me and I with it.

      At last the darkness thinned and dispersed into smoke or cloud; then there was genuine daylight, and the sun actually shone out, but yellowish as it is during an eclipse. We were terrified to see everything changed, buried deep in ashes like snowdrifts. We returned to Misenum where we attended to our physical needs as best we could, and then spent an anxious night alternating between hope and fear. Fear predominated, for the earthquakes went on, and several hysterical individuals made their own and other people’s calamities seem ludicrous in comparison with their frightful predictions. But even then, in spite of the dangers we had been through, and were still expecting, my mother and I had still no intention of leaving until we had news of my uncle.

      Of course these details are not important enough for history, and you will read them without any idea of recording them; if they seem scarcely worth putting in a letter, you have only yourself to blame for asking them.

      ‘Of course these details are not important enough for history,’ he wrote. In fact, Pliny’s accounts are the only contemporary document of the eruption, preserving in words what the volcano preserved beneath ash. Pliny thought the memorial was to his brave uncle – who snored as Vesuvius roared – but history had grander intentions. He considered the details of his letters superfluous, the way letter-writers often do at the time of writing, but we now may argue against this.

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      14232134 SIGNALMAN CHRIS BARKER

      H.C., BASE DEPOT, ROYAL SIGNALS,

      MIDDLE EAST FORCES

      Somewhere in North Africa

      5th September 1943

      Dear Bessie,

      Since Auld Acquaintance should not be forgot, and I have had a letter to Nick and yourself on my conscience for some time, I now commence some slight account of my movements since arrival here some five months ago, and one or two other comments which will edify, amuse or annoy you according to the Britishers’ war-time diet or whatever you had for breakfast.

      The ‘security’ advice of a Signals officer that in our travels we should keep our bowels open and our mouths shut seemed not to have been heard by the populace en route for our port of disembarkation. The behaviour of the troops on board ship was bad. They shouted, shoved, swore and stole to their black hearts’ content. I lost about a dozen items of kit, and was able to replace most of it from the odds left about on the disembarkation date by chaps who had first pinched for the fine fun of it. I cannot include my razor in this lot. That was removed from the ledge I had placed it on, as I turned to get a towel to wipe it.

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       A letter to Signalman Barker tries to get through.

       Chris Barker, 29, was born and grew up in Holloway, north London. He left school at 14 to join the Post Office, working initially as a messenger boy and then a counter clerk, becoming an active trade union member. His training as a teleprinter operator, a ‘reserved’ occupation, kept him out of the war until the end of 1942, and after army training in Yorkshire he enlisted as a keyboard operator with Middle East Command. After a long sea voyage via the Cape, he arrived in Cairo in May 1943.

       Four months later, serving with the Royal Corps of Signals in Tobruk, on the Libyan coast, he was looking after communications for the RAF in the southern Mediterranean. With time on his hands, he began writing to friends he missed back home.

       His letter to Bessie Moore and her boyfriend Nick was just one amongst many (Chris had worked with Bessie at the Post Office). She was now working at the Foreign Office, where her training in Morse code was employed to translate intercepted German radio messages. She was 30 when their correspondence began. She remained in London throughout the war.

      Our disembarkation arrangements were perfect and after a not uncomfortable rail journey we were brought to the above address. I had expected to be parked on a pile of sand, and told it was ‘home’, but the Depot is a very pleasant place, surrounded by pine and eucalyptus trees. The water comes from a tap, and one sits down to meals. There is a Church Hut, quiet and fly-free, an Army Educational Corps hut, where are excellent books, a good NAAFI and a Cinema. A little further away is a tent, run by voluntary labour, where refreshments are served (not thrown at one) at reasonable prices, and there is a lounge, library, writing room, games-room, and Open Air Theatre, where a free film show takes place weekly, also a Concert. There is a lecture one night, bridge and whist another, and a more ‘highbrow’ musical evening another night.

      Directly I arrived, my brother applied for my posting to his units, and after two months of base life I started on the wearying but interesting journey to him. I met him after a separation of 26 months, and had a fine time talking of home and all that had happened there – the rows and the rejoicing – and in the evening walked through the sandy vineyard to swim in the blue waters.

      Since leaving the [Post Office] Counter School and joining the Army, a period of twelve years, I had little real rest. I was either actually on the counter or doing some Union work. If I did relax, it was not for long and I was conscious of being ‘guilty’. Since joining (or being joined to) H.M. Forces, I have had a great deal of leisure, and I have spent most of it reading and writing.

      Since I have decided to make this my last sheet I had better drop a few remarks on the people here. The Egyptians, nominally neutral, are hostile, as are most people without ‘independence’. The Arabs, poor, unhealthy, ignorant, need to be seen to be believed. Metropolitan life turns them into pests, but away from town they are not bad people. They work 12 hours for the shilling; only 25% of them can read and write, 170,000 have only one eye and they die about 40.

      Oh, the Pyramids; yes, I have seen them, sat on them, and thought what a gigantic case for Trade Unionism they present. How many unwilling slaves died in the colossal toil involved in erecting these edifices. And how insignificant the erection compared with Nature’s own hills and mountains?

      I visited the Cairo Zoo, happily in the company of two young Egyptians who were being educated at the American mission. They made the day a success. The cruelty of having a polar bear (noble creature) in this climate, and the effort to console him with a 10 second cold water dip!

      Excuse the writing, and confusion of this effort. But it’s me, alright. I hope you are O.K. Nick, it’s a long way from our Lantern Lecture on Sunny Spain at Kingsway Hall!

      All the best Bessie.

      Chris

      ** ‘If you’re well, that’s good – all’s well with me.’