T. E. Lawrence to Clare Sydney Smith

16.vii.30.

This is not a letter, but a line, to say that everybody is glad the operation went well. We got messages about it to-day from Coastal Area.

It was as well that Biffy did not come. The afternoon has been stormy, like all the recent days, and now it is going to rain again.

The Biscuit sits in the shed; the engine is finished (not very satisfactory. She will not be much faster than she was: but she should last a long time. I hope we have cured the oil leaks and the water-leak. There is so much rough workmanship in her) but not installed and I will wait for the new coupling. Then she can be lined up properly and will do for a long autumn of running, let's hope.

The camp is quiet and we have not been troubled: only the bad weather and all the work on the boat and the general feeling of something wrong makes things dull. The dogs walk about happily with the Adjutant and visit here almost every day. Here is the office.

The Admiral sent the news on yesterday afternoon to Squeak. He flew to Falmouth that afternoon in the Iris.

T.E.S.

Do not take Graves' book as very true! It is quite superficial really. It would be hard, in writing of a little-known but reputed figure not to dramatise one's subject a bit.

They used to call me T.E.L. Then I threw away the L. They were not certain that it would remain S. So it became just TE, for safety's sake.

T.E.S.