Karachi   May 25.

Dear Mother.   Many thanks for 2 letters one about April 27, & one May 3. I can’t think why you had never got the watch, those people should have arrived by the time you wrote. I wonder if Jim has got to the front yet, anyhow it’s nice to know he’s a useful officer & can’t be spared.

So you have at last got the garden opposite. Are you going to keep the bees. Has Susan’s nose turned pink then, it was quite black. What a shame it is Topher getting no leave yet, I do hope he gets some soon. Was’nt that Irish business rotten, & now I hear (as a matter of fact from Ramsay, tell the girls he’s been invalided from the Gulf but quite fit) that we ought to have been in Kut if it had not been for some foolish mistake. But you never know.

I am so sorry the dove is dead, I shall miss it when I get home again. I never sent the photograph as it was so rotten.

I played cricket for the military the other day & quite distinguished myself, 12 not out & caught a catch, a good one. A Capt Tate who knows James well made 94 for us. We declared on 220, & all but got the Civilians out for 125, the last man was in & the last over was being bowled, when the very last ball we all appealed confidently for l.b.w. If only the umpire had said out, we’d have won.

I enclose some snaps for my book.

Best love to all. Send me my photographs of Nan, Cicely, Bunchie & Sybil.

Yr loving son

Richard.

[written on envelope]

Many thanks for Bystander but the papers I like best are those weekly D. Sketches & Mirrors all bound in one. I do love the Serials so.