31701-0077-0001

Port Moresby,
Papua.
23rd October '41.

Darling Nancy,
I was very disappointed when your letter failed to arrive last week. 'censorless' delay.

Since coming back from the week's walkabout I've has only a day in camp. I don't remember ever feeling more fit. The outcome of the big hike was that a party went out to begin work. Yesterday I had to go out again with search parties to locate the officer in charge. He went away to shoot a magani [wallaby] & lost himself for 24 hours. Before I finished the search I was bleeding from jungle vines & wait-awhiles. Since we found our man I look back on the ordeal as something of an experience.
[censors signature Charles Edward Bishop>

I am enclosing a snap of a coastal village. The two officers in the group are my messmates. The boys are my own. Remember the one that went kava[?] he's is on this end. Lakatois consists of 5-20 of similar canoes braced together.

The heat has been terrible in the country. The soil is all cracked & burning. Fires burst out amongst the grass spontaneously. its so bewildering & uncanny at times. Above, hangs a fall of smoke & heat haze that totally obscures the sun. Towards evening it shows itself - then it's red like a full moon.

Today the C.O. informed me he had another week's