2110-2-14-14

6. 12. 15. 1st K.O.S.B.

[ST: Stair Agnew Gillon, lifelong friend of John Buchan]

My dear John,

as I half thought when I wrote the other day a letter from you was already on the way & has been twice conned by me. There is little to add to thanks & counter messages to those who are good enough to send me such kind messages. I think I'll wait & see how our thing goes off tomorrow.

I read 39 Steps sent me by my aunt at a draught. It is daringly improbable but it is no disparagement to say that the best thing is the finish of chapter II p. 50.

I am going to make out the itinerary & send it to you as soon as I can. But how did the "Devil" get der Boot for das Boot or as [Skerrington?] says "am I wrong?"

My officer under instruction is deep in your other tale. I had just begun it, but he was out of a book. So I shall shortly resume at the Cauldstane slap. I report anon.

I have done well in books & I am not surprised at the fame of Pêcheur d'Islande.

What can you send me? I should enjoy one or two of your most recent French Library - what you think I wd like. Is René Bazin's de toute son Ame good?

I think Caesar's de bello Gallico in a simple school edition with a vocabulary would interest me very much just now.

If you have any new Spanish Nelsons since I left that are good I shd love one, but I'd need a pocket Teubner or Garnier.

3.

If there is a good modern Greek play or novel in London cheap & portable I should enjoy it as I have a dictionary & can read the Bible fluently.

Now I don't want all these It is only a throw-out. (I saw that Clarendon Press (Humphrey [Milford] shd send them me gratis) had published a Russian grammar and Reader from Tolstoi. If not bulky they would give me what the shocker - other than yours cannot do - complete rest from life's worries)

I like to leave it to you & get "a surprise".

Well John I am so weary of letter writing that I just can't go on. I shall resume this evening.

How kind of Susie & how much we need the soap tablets. 9. 12. 15. They came yesterday

But your recital of Loos warms my heart.

What a full life yours is. I don't know how you can keep up the pressure, even with the Belloc - Buchan Punch poem in front of me (sent by Johnnie) and my recollection of your prodigies of labour at Oxford.

Since I started my letter the new mortar has proved a distinct success. I expect I shall have [to] study it.

I had a jolly day yesterday lunching with 155 where I met Brig Gen Pollok McCall & Philip Guersin Advocate & then had tea later on with Worrall who was at Hailebury with me and is Bde. Major of the Lowland mounted.

I heard a very good a/c

of Lovat's scouts from an artillery man. No Turk opposite them dares to think of sniping. I don't believe finer material ever took the field.

I have got a tarpaulin at last and am very comfortable. I feel as if things were too good to last.

I am as careful as I can be but there many chances for bullets & shrapnel quite apart from going over the parapet.

I hope things are going ahead in Serbia. I only realised through the Nation how little we had done by the end of October.

I may be all wrong, but I believe Massingham will leave a big name as a journalist.

I don't agree with much of what he writes, but he has definite standards and his style