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T. E. Lawrence to Clare Sydney Smith
6.III.32.
How the weeks
lengthen out. I came in the end of November.
My Notes of the
200 Class are finished: a small book of about 40 pages, I expect:
and they may appear as an Air Ministry Publication. That will make me
laugh, if it does. I am revising them now, for submission to the
Publication Department, and preparing an index. Ever so dull, the notes,
and entirely impersonal. Nobody could guess that anybody had written
them. They seem just to have collected themselves.
Now we are testing
these 16 boats: and hope by Easter to have passed them all out. Easter
is the first possible date for finishing. It means one every day, and
two on some days, I hope, but do not feel too sure of managing so much.
After Easter there
are 9 dinghies to test : and one of them the refuelling dinghy, to be
exhaustively tested in all weathers. I see myself getting wet again.
After that, in
April, there are two target boats to test. That is a new proposition and
should be curious and perhaps exciting.
After that there is
nothing at all, and I hope for Plymouth. Not the Biscuit, particularly.
I shall be half-dead of motor-boating, and longing for books and
armchairs and fleshpots.
A queer mixed life
mine is.
You will see how
difficult it is for me to say anything definite about Manston for the
moment. After Easter... yes I think after Easter. I should get at least
a week-end. But until the 16 boats are passed, not a day or hardly an
hour.
The irony was that I
lately spent 5 days in London, and did nothing - saw nobody. All the
time I was in E.6 typing these blessed Notes on the etc. and
answering questions about them and other boats.
I become learned
about boats, and meanwhile, there are no books, no music, no easements.
But George Brough have swapped my bike for a new one, a beauty; if only
I had time to ride it.
Lately I nearly sent
you two Turkish rugs: but had mercy. They were so dirty, and so
threadbare. Even Leo would have found them stringy under-paw. Please
give them a double ration of coffee sugar to-morrow night. They will
have forgotten me before I come.
My regards to the
Squawk: I hope Manston is growing more like a home for its airmen. By
the way, did you get poor Sergt. Pitt along?
Yours,
T.E.S.
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