Dearest Jane... Read Online Free

packet here without any ill-effect.
    Would you like some Jaffa oranges? Do let me know and I’ll send you some after the Christmas rush. I’ve sent off some Turkish Delight but God knows if it will ever get there, they’re so hopelessly inefficient here.
    Social and recreational life in Alexandria occupied the time whilst awaiting orders, as Roger told his father, Pop, in a number of letters:
    We’ve been pretty tense and anxious lately but on the whole life is quite enjoyable. I sail most afternoons in the harbour, being a very nautical and seamanlike member of the Royal Egyptian Yacht Club – extremely smart and exclusive (I don’t think). We usually go out in a boat which holds four or five people (it’s called a ‘Fairy’ I believe) and cruise round the harbour watching the boats come in and out and meeting the Imperial Airways Seaplanes. It’s usually rather rough outside the harbour so I find I enjoy myself more if I exercise a certain discretion and refrain from committing myself to the mercy of the waves and my own very limited nautical abilities. There are races in the harbour three days a week and although I sometimes take an extremely minor part as portion of the crew in these events, I find them rather a strain owing to the intense seriousness with which they are taken by the local yachtsmen.
    My social outings have been severely limited – I’m afraid I’m not a popular success with the local ‘gens chics’. However, I toiled off to a very stiff lunch party the other day (invitation card 6” × 4”) and paid for my temerity by undergoing a three-hour ordeal sandwiched between two of the dreariest bores I’ve ever met. One of them would lean across to talk to me and perspired most liberally on to my plate. I nearly covered my food with my handkerchief whenever I thought he was going to address me.
    Best love,
    Roger
    I went up to Cairo this week to do some work there; it’s far worse than here, very much hotter and terribly dry and dusty. The Nile has reached a record height and people are beginning to get nervous of a flood. This is really an extraordinary country: even at the main bookstall at Cairo Central Station it is quite impossible to buy anything but literature of a highly pornographic description!
    Best love,
    Roger
    I’m just off to motor down to Moascar (military garrison) about two hundred and twenty miles away in the desert. I’m not taking the Vauxhall as I know it would never make it on the ghastly roads out here, and it is far too valuable to me for running about town. I leave at midday in an Austin 7 (military) and drive from the Canal road to the Pyramids (about 120 miles) and I’ll spend the night out there in the open. The next day, I leave the road and drive cross country over the desert, my only guide being a compass whose accuracy has been more than questionable since a cow stood on it at Sandhurst! I expect the last 100 miles will have to be done at about 10 mph and I shall be lucky if I don’t stick in the soft sand. The country is hideous the whole way except for occasional bursts of wild flowers.
    I went for a picnic with some pretty tiresome girls at Aboukir Bay, a most lovely place for bathing and sailing, and prawns the size of small lobsters. I very rapidly tired of the party and spent the day with some native fishermen who were far more amusing and rather better mannered. I think I shall have to hire a very small boat next summer and just cruise quietly about in it.
    Best love,
    Roger
    An awful dinner party last week – 34 people and I sat next to a fabulously wealthy and exceedingly vulgar old bitch who was in the back row of the chorus of a Greek cabaret before marrying the richest man in Egypt. I told her a lot of shocking lies and asked her to come on a cruise on my 100-ton yacht to the Aegean Islands; she has accepted and is I think looking forward to it.
    Best love,
    Roger
    There is not much to do in the evenings here – but there are good places where