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Miranshah Fort,
Waziristan.

26.xii.28

I have to report progress: the first seven years of my engagement in the
service are nearly ended. So I have applied to be allowed to extend for
five years more: or rather, to convert into active years the five that
I would normally have passed in the reserve. Trenchard agreed to this, as
one of his last acts. So I am "booked" till 1935. I wanted you to
know that I'm making the best use I can of the gift you led
Mr Baldwin into giving me in 1925. The R.A.F. still suits me
[in margin: Will you tell him if ever you see him at leisure, that I'm still thanking him, whenever I think of it?]
all over, as a home: quaint, that is, for it's probably not everyone's
prescription. However, there it is. I feel Trenchard's going, almost as
a personal loss. There was a breadth and honesty, and devotion, about him
that made one accept his headship as according to the course of
nature. I do not think that any other man in the three kingdoms
has had his job - and privilege - of making, from the first man
upward, a whole new arm. His work has been very good.
The R.A.F. hasn't yet found the way out between the rocks of
discipline and individual technical intelligence - but it goes forward, and
is very hopeful. Its salvation lies in its own heads, to work
out internally. It is something new, in services, and I find it
fascinating to watch its infant years. Some of it I put on
paper, as notes on a recruit's life in the (quite misdirected and
harmful) Depot at Uxbridge: about 1922 that was. Trenchard
read it lately, when I made a gift of the manuscript (not to be
published, of course) to Edward Garnett: and he wasn't pleased
about it. But of course it is ancient history. If ever you are
at a loose end for reading matter, and feel strong enough for a
crabbed manuscript, then borrow it off E.G. (you probably
know him: critic, and midwife of many good writers) and have
a smile at the adventures of a jelly-fish among sergeant-
majors. The poor fish laid 80,000 words in his tribulation!

On the whole,though, you had probably better not. For
the last weeks I have been reading, inch by inch, your Montrose:
keeping it in the Wireless Cabin, which lies between our
barracks and our offices, and from which I have to collect "in"
signals several times a day. I used to take ten minutes off
each time, for Montrose, which came as a revelation to me.