Karachi.
Friday 9th.
Yes see about Miss Sparrow.
Dear Mother.
Many thanks for your letter May 17. That man has never sent my watch yet. Hope he has’nt run away with it! Trust he has only forgotten. I am glad you like the photographs. Who I wonder told you about a doctor in No 1. G.H, I much prefer the men in it to the fellows in ours. I hear from Evelyn that she had been down to tea on a Sunday. I am so glad you like her. Rather nice for you being at Aldershot.
I got the two letters all right; many thanks. One of them very welcome, about some money that was owed to me. It’s dreadful about Kitchener. We heard the day after, I wonder what everyone thinks at home about it.
Just at present it’s very very hot here. Always is they say before the Monsoon breaks. Ted says he may be able to get down here next month. I’ve told him we’ll be delighted to see him, but he may find it a bit hot. Anyway it will be cooler than it is now.
I’ve just had most awful bad (not really as bad as some) prickly heat. Such a nuisance, & I’m so angry, as it’s just like a beginner I say, not like an old Anglo-Indian like I am.
Fancy seeing Dumps Morse again. I have’nt seen her for years! You might send me (don’t get excited or flurried about it) my ventriloquist doll, as there are crowds of kids here and I’d like to amuse ’em one afternoon. Stick him in a strongish box & send it by the mail. I expect the man in that Express luggage shop near the station will tell you the best way, or write to the Eastern Express Co (can’t find address) they are as good as anyone & they have a depot in Karachi. Put in the box too, some of those white shirts of mine with R.B on the front and also my blue uniform.
Ask Jane to send me some new songs if there are any. There is some money of mine still knocking about. She has some anyhow.
I am putting in some photographs which Trel took the other day, funny I should meet him, is’nt it! Did Evelyn sing the other Sunday, does’nt she sing well? She liked you awfully.
I must stop & catch the mail. Best love to all.
Yr loving son
Richard.
I see the Malaya arrived in time to do some fighting, how pleased Paul must be.
While all the boys asked their long-suffering mother to send them things, Richard’s requests were always more extreme and more frequent than Paul’s or Ted’s. It seems typical of Richard, the convivial party-goer, that he should have a ventriloquist’s doll but it’s verging on the ungrateful that his long-suffering mother would make a fuss about sending it to India.
The fighting the Malaya had been in was the battle of Jutland.
