My Dear Bessie

by Chris Barker

  It has just come over me – the thought of us being married, together, naked, alone. How I want to traverse your flesh everywhere with my lips. How I want to place my hands, my lips, my everything, to the vital vibrant spot. To be lost completely in you, to be entirely, absolutely a part of you. I hope you are right about your ability to learn to obey, because I have probably the makings of a real Victorian in me, as I believe you once discerned. I shall be doing a lot of ordering about unless I use my brains. Query: will I, and can you take it?

  Don’t ‘hold out on me’. Let me have you, every bit of you that I can.

  You are wonderful. I love you.

  Chris

  6 August 1945

  Dearest,

  This is a very brief note, as I am about to start for Rome. We stop in Bari for the night and then have a day on the train.

  As I finished yesterday’s letter, I discovered that Bert had come back to camp. He left here this morning on his first stage homewards. By the time you get this, he may be home, as he is almost certainly being flown. But do not tell Mum, she is nervous. Although on guard it was good to be able to see him go, smiling, homewards.

  Sorry your digestion is still troublesome.

  More as soon as possible.

  I love you.

  Chris

  8 August 1945

  My dear Bessie,

  This is a brief and formal note to let you know that I am now in Rome. We arrived at 8.30, and are not free to leave until about 3 o’clock, by which time the CO will have given us a lecture, telling us how many VD cases, and so on. I have spent the last hour having a shower and handing in my dirty clothes. Last night, I made myself comfortable on the floor of the train compartment with another chap, while two chaps had the seats, and two the racks, both seats and racks consisting only of their wooden slats and not comfortable. I am rather tired from the journey, and my old bones ache a bit, rather naturally. Brigadiers do not travel this way. The Rest Camp is 7 miles from Rome, through which I have only just travelled by truck at the moment. It is a former hospital, a very large one.

  There is a large Italian staff, and the girls are (rather expectedly) ‘fresh’. Some of the chaps sickened me by calling out to many of them. The journey through the hills was laborious and punctuated by many stops, where poor little Italian children, bare-footed and clothed only in the merest of threads, happily caught the bully and bread with which we were abundantly supplied. Usually prostitutes work the trains, are hauled aboard at one station and set off many miles down the line. I don’t know if it happened this time. The scenery is really wonderful. I hope we can see it ourselves, together, one day.

  Let me end by saying I love you and that whatever I may see this week, it will be less valuable because I see it by myself.

  I love you.

  Chris

  9 August 1945

  My Darling,

  It is already clear to me that all my efforts at description will fail to convey to you anything but a tenth of what the parts of Rome I see are like. The buildings are tremendous, and many. The statues are magnificent and everywhere. The shops are full of good (manufactured) things of life, and they range from the car to the cosmetic. I saw a pair of shoes at £22 10s.

  The people are not so different as I had been led to expect. They are more friendly than in Bari, but this may be because they know more English. The clothes of the Romans, particularly the women, are quite easily superior in fashion and variety to those in London. I cannot say about quality – most of the material used by the young is what is naughtily described as diaphanous. The beauty of the Roman girls is a bye-word throughout Italy. Many of them are indeed splendid sights. They freely use beauty-aids, do not wear stockings, but colour their toes, easily seen through the fact that most wear sandals. I should think there are many prostitutes here; as we came out of the theatre last night, there were many beauties walking singly. Two people invited us to a ‘Clean Bedroom – Respectable’ – but I rather feel that maybe their idea of respectability is based on Tiberius or some such humanitarian. Two women we saw ‘giving the eye’ rather disgusted us – one of them was soon to be a mother. Seeing these places under wartime conditions is a disadvantage.

  The atomic bomb announcement* (which I don’t understand) makes me wonder about the future. What a life!

  Whatever may be the reasons, the end of the Far East war is surely to come sooner as a result of it. And (since we can only interpret such news in a personal way) for you and for me, that spells earlier happiness. The Japanese may sling it in, but more likely they will be blasted utterly and earlier than scheduled.

  I love you.

  Chris.

  At the Vatican, August 1945 (Chris front row, third from left)

  10 August 1945

  My Darling,

  Sitting in the YMCA just now, I heard a news flash from the USA Soldiers’ Station, that the Japanese had broadcast the acceptance of Allied surrender terms. It is already in the Rome papers, and just after the original announcement there came from below the cheers of the Romans. I hope it is true.

  My first thought was of thankfulness that our chaps will not have to die in greater numbers to tame the Japanese. My second, and subsequent thoughts have been of how the news affects us. It must surely mean that I shall be released from the Army much sooner, that more leave will be allowed even to chaps who are in the Army. It spells happiness for us, rather earlier than we could have expected. So rejoice that we are nearer, rejoice that our wasted years really are ending, and that soon we shall be together, not only for a little while (fine though that is) but for always. I do hope that your constitution will be able to stand all the rising emotions it needs must support. If you are anything like me (and, gloriously, you are) you are bounding forward, surging onwards, though yet there is time we must wait.

  I am enclosing a photograph taken in the Vatican Gardens today. On my right hand side there are three chaps I spend the days with: Barton, Tuckey and Thurgur. The tour this morning was of the Vatican Gardens and Museum and Sistine Chapel. The Museum contains the gifts of all the European sovereigns, the kind of Blackmail to the Eternal, which the RC Church has practised since its inception. I cannot convey the beauty of the tapestries, paintings, sculptures, mosaics, which the Museum contains.

  His Holiness received me (and 400 others) in audience, spoke in Italian and English for four minutes – I caught one word, ‘Blessings’. Brazilians, Americans, S. Africans, New Zealanders were amongst the crowd of the blessed. The Swiss Guards would do credit to a D’Oyly Carte show, the priests are an anaemic looking lot of stupids.

  I love you.

  Chris

  20 August 1945

  My Dear Bessie,

  Well, today I got the letter card from Mum which I have been dreading. I expect you’ll know all about it by now, as you might have been at Bromley the day Bert got home. I needn’t bother with the details. Bert was friendly with a chap named Wicks when he first joined the Army. He wrote him irregularly whilst abroad, and his letter sent last December was acknowledged by his friend’s wife. Her husband had been accidentally shot in Italy last July. Bert sent her some nuts, and letters became quite frequent. He had fallen in love with her, and she with him. He was very confident (as honest innocent people are) that Mum would find it easy to adjust herself of the new situation. I thought it possible but unlikely, and tried to tell him what I could of the disadvantages. (Mrs Wicks lives at Sanderstead, hence my suggestion of the name a month back.) He said that he would tell Mum the first day he arrived, then call on Mrs Wicks. I presume that he has done that. Probably Mrs Wicks was as happy as Mum was unhappy.

  I am quite inadequately provided with genius to meet this situation. Personally, I find it easy to say that Bert is acting naturally and wisely and that Mum is too closely concerned as a principal to be anything but selfish and jealous.

  You are in an awkward situation too. I should be very surprised to find you had different views from me, but I would
be very grateful for them. Your awkward situation is that you have to try and stop neutral and be helpful to both parties, principally to Mum. Please have a shot. What a life.

  I LOVE YOU.

  Chris

  29 August 1945

  My Very Dearest One,

  I hope the enclosed ‘brochure’ broke the news gently to you. The operative date for us is October 10th, by which time I should have done 2 yrs 8 mths abroad, and by which time, also, I hope that the 2 yrs 8 mths men will be proceeding on leave.

  In a real sense I may, I think, regard myself as on the way to you. We’ll discuss how it was done, or why, and whom it affects, later on – for the present, I am very happy to think that WE shall BE together in a measurable distance of time. Perhaps as little as two months, maybe as much as three or four. It means that I can put my arms around you, and call you my wife. It means that we can marry and sleep together. It means that your name will be Barker and you’ll be a ‘Mrs’. It means that I shall cast away your last doubt by a legal act, and that in a slightly different fashion we shall face the world together. It means each of us giving all to the other and holding nothing back in any way. It means new responsibilities and duties. It means settling down in faith and hope in each other. It means you’ll be taking on a very hard case, and [section of letter torn off].

  I must say I think you are lovely and tell you I want you and need you. That I want to rub myself against you, realise the full fleshly dearness of you, appreciate the grandeur of your beauty, the call of your body, acknowledge, honour, you.

  I love you.

  Chris

  30 August 1945

  Dearest Bessie,

  This is a quick letter, rushed, crowded in.

  I am glad you are getting olive oil in England.

  This week in Bari I have been able to look in most of the footwear shops, and I can tell you that there is no chance at all of getting warm winter shoes. Everything is very skimpy, wood or cork, with a few little strips of stuff to keep the shoes on the feet.

  I have sent you off three parcels of new season’s nuts today (as a matter of interest I tell you they are 7s. each).

  It occurs to me that Bert might make some suggestion to you that, should I arrive home at about the time he gets out of the Army, we might get married on the same day, or something like that. Please do not favour this course; I don’t suppose the position will arise but it might do, hence the observation. I would very much like to get home about October 24th, and get married on October 26th, but I don’t suppose anything so specially nice as that would happen.

  I know nothing about rings. I suggest you do a very little bit of window gazing, with the idea of familiarising yourself with the kinds of rings there are, so that when we buy it, there will be only one dumb bell present, and that me.

  Yes, my cold went OK, but yesterday after three very bad nights in which I slept little owing to the type of bed I slept on I found myself with stomach trouble, heartburn and one or two other bad things. Of course, that must be the day on which I was giving my specimen lecture, and when it came to it I was very tired and not very well, so that I was nervous, and very ordinary. Although I got certain commendations from the very radical Major who is in the command, he also said my voice became monotonous after a time (which was quite true, but I hope not, normally) and that I was too much of a propagandist (a fault I really am well aware of).

  Your body, your breasts, your hairs, your moisture, they speak to me, they say to me: ‘Come!’ I must have you, have you, for I can only be happy through you.

  I love you.

  Chris

  2 September 1945

  My Dearest, Loveliest, Most Wonderful, Delightful One,

  I received your letter of the 28th today, with more than a little relief, as another day without the joy your letters bring would have been rather bad.

  What you need to look out for now is 2 parcels of roasted nuts, posted July, and four more fresh posted in the last few days. That will give you nearly a stone of almonds, but I shouldn’t squander them too rapidly, as I am not at all sure if I can send anything like them from Egypt, should I get there. So, I think if I were you I should put them in a dry spot and eat them with a view to their eventual disappearance. (I have now spent £11 on nuts since my return here in April, by the way.)

  ‘Moving’ is in the air, and a fortnight is mentioned. So if you get few letters for a fair time (I mean only a little, I shall write daily while I can), it means I am packing up books, maps, pens, blackboards, and so on, for the sea voyage (sickening thought, I hoped I’d finished with water, water everywhere).

  I am so sorry that I must go away again after my next leave. It will be hard. But the leave will make it worth it, and your new status be a mental help to you during my next, and perhaps last, absence. Bessie, my darling, my lovely, wonderful woman, it will be such sweet delight to be in a room with you again, to be able to put my hand up your skirt, to put my hands in your blouse, to grasp your breasts, to touch the tips of them. What grander sight than to contemplate your loveliness, to see your breasts, to look upon the vital spot? My darling, five months ago (see, five months have gone!) you were very good to me.

  I will not say very much about the Bert business. But, I must be honest and think that Bert would have been wonderful had he ‘given up’ Daisy (Mrs Wicks) and there is plenty of justification, superficially, for much that Mum says. Logically, I am with Bert. Sympathetically, I am with Mum. You do well if you can behave neutrally, but I think you should.

  My Darling, I need you more, really need you more, every day.

  I love you.

  Chris

  6 September 1945

  My Wonderful Woman,

  I posted letter 50 earlier today because I had to be sure that you would be getting the earliest possible answer to your letter saying you knew I was due for leave sometime.

  I ought to explain how the leave is given. They take chaps in order of seniority of overseas service. When October 10 arrives, my claims have to be considered, and if I am the senior (2 yrs 8 months) I go. Actually, I have just spoken to a 2 yrs 9 months chap who has not yet gone. Whether I go in October or later depends on the number sent, but anyhow it is quite clear that it is only a matter of months before I am homeward bound – although blow me, it will be hard coming back. There’s one good thing, though, no other separations we shall have are likely to be as long as our first. Six months is about as much as we shall have, I think. I very much hope so, too, for I have been away from you far too long already. My darling, you were lovely on leave, I was – I am – delighted with you. A good thing this time is that you won’t have the worry of considering if I may change my mind upon sighting you.

  To proceed to other points in your letter (though I don’t want to, for all I am saying is ‘She knows. She knows. She knows’).

  Glad you think Mum is a little better. Please see her as much as you can. It is important, more so than before. It’ll tire you and try you, but please do this.

  Regarding the 28 days, I feel that purely because of the need to demonstrate my kinship with Mum, we should try to spend most of our time (apart from that fourteen days when I get you ALL TO MYSELF) at 161 [the Barker family home], that is, sleeping there and visiting 27 (reverse procedure to that you suggested). It is not likely to be so convenient, but there are obvious reasons for it. Let me know your views, please.

  I hope we can get somewhere fairly private – where going to bed early can be accomplished without askances.

  I love you.

  Chris

  9 September 1945

  My Dearest,

  We are stopping the night in the lofty tree-filled park which is the Transit Camp, Naples.

  I am familiar with the road run to Naples, having done it several times before. This is a wonderful run and is reminiscent of some of the Scottish trips. As we ran through the villages there is the usual unceasing activity – almonds drying, being shelled, maize drying, tomatoes st
rung up outside the houses also drying; a girl walks along with half-a-dozen turkeys, a boy with a pig, adults bare-legged and -footed wait at the fountain for water then carry it away on their heads, three or four horses labour under a heavy cartload of stone, as we stop boys come along to ask for ‘biscottys’ as they call them (biscuits). My driver is in charge of the truck, and more or less in charge of me. I wouldn’t take an order, but I can’t give him one, so am more or less compelled to tacitly agree with his actions. He gave three people a lift as we passed through a village near our Camp, but later would not stop for anyone – Poles he hates, the coloured American he regards as a black illegitimate, ordinary Americans he won’t help, and so on. He told me before we started that there was a good ‘racket’, picking up a load of grain in one village, and dropping it at one miles away (you might get as much as £2 10s. for such a service, he said. I bet it’s to avoid tax or something).

  Well, he stopped on the road and took aboard an elderly woman, shrivelled as are most old Italians, and a girl aged about 19. He had agreed to take them and their two bags of grain to a village about thirty miles away, in return for (he explained to the young Italian) ‘a little love’. Well, this is a serious offence, no passengers are permitted. About five miles down the road he asked me (so casually) if I wanted to have the girl? I told him ‘no thanks’ and a few more miles along he stops and says we will have a ‘brew up’, so while I make tea, the old woman goes in one direction and he and the young girl disappear in the bushes in another. About ten minutes pass and he returns, to give me a detailed account of the copulation – not satisfactory to him. The girl returned, the old woman, and off we went again.