My Dear Bessie. Chris Barker
you liked the Alex. stuff. I did not intend you to think that most of the chaps on leave or stationed there got their fun in not-so-pleasant ways. The great majority are good chaps. Understand that I am a humbug, but I shall try hard not to humbug you, I shall try to present myself to you as I am because I do not need to pretend to have the brain of an Einstein or the body of a Fred Astaire, to capture you. Here I am, be-spectacled, bald headed, often bemused – and Hey Presto! there are you, nevertheless all for me. It gives me a grand feeling. I think you will understand that my physical thoughts about you are not very restrained, that they are rather violent and terrific. I like to think you do not mind.
I love you.
Chris
12 July 1944
Dear Bessie,
I heard on the news that the flying bombs left London alone last night. I hope you made the most of it, and got a good night’s rest for once in a while. Do you go in the shelter at night and what kind of a shelter have you got? What happens in the daytime, do you just carry on working? There are so many people to whom this war has brought disaster and distress. One of the chaps in my Section has just learned that one of his brothers has been killed in France. He has another brother there also.
There is something like the cry of a child for its mother in the way my inside cries for you, and then again there is not, there is the just as strong instinct of mating, for in our roundabout fashion, that is what we have come to the threshold of – mating.
You would be glad of the ‘drying winds’ out here. They are terrific. I, too, look forward to the day when you’ll be ironing my shirts. I don’t know how ‘heavy’ I am on clothes. Darned socks, the trouser bottom where it touches the shoe, and frayed cuffs are the only repairs I can think of offhand. You should see my darns nowadays! Great big lumps of wool, but they never seem to hurt me, so they must be OK.
I was delighted to get some idea of your dresses, though it will take me some time to assimilate them. Sometimes will you tell me what you are wearing when you are writing to me? My thoughts raced at your mention of your coral pink blouse (sports). My hands want to insinuate themselves into the blouse, so that they may hold your breasts, hold them tight, tell you all you want to know. And now, could you enlighten me regarding the difference between a ‘(sports)’ blouse and a mere ordinary blouse?!
I love you.
Chris
14 July 1944
You Dear Creature,
Thank you for making today happier for me. It was great to get a new letter, and to discern, feel, bathe in, your gracefulness.
You say you are absorbed by me. I believe you. I have no doubt of it, and I love you for it. I wish I could be with you, to hold you tight and crush you till you cried. I wish I could kiss you fiercely, then tenderly: tenderly, then fiercely.
Bessie, my love, can you send me some little thing, personal to you, that has been very close to you, for me to finger and kiss, sometimes? A little piece of cloth, that has touched you. You could send me a few square inches in your next surface letter. If you think I am an ass, you must tell me so, but I am so desperately in need of you. I want you so much. I think of your breasts, your breasts, your breasts, and my great urge is to hold them and assure you of my love.
Since writing the earlier pages I have had some sleep, and then been forced by chaps not playing at the last minute, to turn out for our cricket team against a South African eleven. I have very little idea of actually playing, though I like the game for exercise. Our side scored 13 (which was terrible, including half a dozen 0’s, of which mine was one). And they declared at 112 for 7, giving us another whack. This time we scored 44, and to my delight, I scored – 1! We had cake and tea, a bumpy ride there and back, and I felt all virtuous for blooming-well turning out at some inconvenience and ‘saving the honour of the side’.
I wish I could be with you to bathe in the wonder and magic and splendour of you. ‘Wonder, magic, splendour’; if it should happen that you read this on a nasty morning after an alarming ‘bomb’ night, you may look askance at these words. But I want you to accept them as illustrating how I regard you, the source of things good.
I love you.
Chris
17 July 1944
My dear Bessie,
I received today your No. 5, and my impression after reading it was that you were unhappy, and I had caused it, a thing I never want to do. Please, my darling, do not get depressed or downcast, sad and sorrowful on account of anything I may say. I do not mean to question you or your conduct.
I assure you that, however discouraged I may be by the world scene, I am not miserable about you and I, and that nothing you have said in any way detracts from my appreciation and love of you; for you to even metaphorically have a ‘suicidal feeling’ is very silly, and right against the facts.
You say that when I am ‘fed up’ with you, you feel cold and stiff and useless. Whenever has a letter of mine told you I am fed up? My whole effort has been to impress you with my hunger for you. And I believe that I have succeeded, I do not really feel that you are seriously thinking I am not perfectly satisfied with you. Whatever emotions I have had about any other person in the past are quite dwarfed by this that I have for you. Do not talk of me leaving you when my one big desire is to come to you, to come to you as your lover, your mate, and take your everything.
I am glad you mention about avoiding people. We certainly must slobber alone. What a wonderful day when we are really together, in the flesh, looking at each other. What wonderful days when I am holding you, mating with you. Of course you are silly for thinking I might leave you. And I don’t believe you think it. You know that you have me now for good. This morning I was looking at some of your ‘old’ letters (they are new and alive to me always now) and saw you say ‘You know that with me you have come home’, and I thought how splendidly true that was. You are my home. My life rests within and through you.
You say you yearn to please me. Well, you can do that by not worrying your head about me and my desert needs. I am much more concerned about bombs on you than anything like getting you to send me anything, even if I needed it! Penguins you can look out for, please: A99 A Book of English Essays. A98 An Anthology of War Poetry. Don’t wear yourself stiff getting them. Give up the chase, if, as is probable, they are now out of print. Remember that I’d prefer one letter from you to the whole of the Bodleian.
I love you.
Chris
25 July 1944
Dear Bessie,
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