67 Wing, R.A.F
c/o G.P.O. London.
Oct 18, 1918.

Dear Marje ~

I haven’t had a letter from you to answer, but still I am going to write you a few lines just to let you know that I’m alive and kicking, and that I love you as much as ever.  Isn’t that a perfectly good excuse for a letter?

Let me see, when did I write you last?  When I first returned from Porto Fino Convalescent Home, wasn’t it, and I got (I think) four letters from you at one fell swoop.  Or was it only three.  In any case I hadn’t had many adventures when I wrote.  That’s not saying I have had any since, of course.

However, things are going along quite smoothly and monotonously for me here.  The other day the C.O. paraded all the officers, and doled out various jobs for which each officer would be responsible.  It fell to my unhappy lot to be made wireless and electrical equipment officer, which is some job when your c/o insists that you shall wire up for electricity a whole blooming seaplane station, especially when one has to borrow all the electric wire and sockets bulbs, etc from an Italian shipyard next door, from a fellow who speaks no English and terrible French.  I am getting quite an expert at talking with my hands and feet.

We had quite a funny thing happen on parade the other day.  A lot of the men brought raincoats etc to parade but put them down at the side of the parade ground when they fell in for inspection.  When the orderly officer yelled out, “Pick up your dressing” they all fell out and grabbed their raincoats.  Great consternation from the O.O.!  Believe me, we have some simple nuts in the ranks of the R.A.F.

I haven’t done a very great deal of flying since I returned; in all a little over 5 hours in the air.  The weather has been very bad, awfully changeable and windy as the deuce.  We ourselves are very well situated for flying in any wind, as our harbour is perfectly protected from all sides, but once out to sea if we have any engine trouble, we are quite out of luck if its rough, as our machines won’t stand rough water such as runs in the Medi.  I did one anti-sub patrol of three hours and three quarters last Sunday, but I guess I won’t get another for a long time, as we have the deuce of a lot of pilots here now and we have to do patrols in rotation.  I expect I will try another about Xmas, if I have luck.

I haven’t really any news, but you have been such a dear about writing me that I thought perhaps you would appreciate an extra one from me.  Where’s that photo, by the way?  It seems to me that I’ve been looking for it for about 3 years now, and as absence makes the heart grow fonder, I may go quite mad about you when I finally do get your snap on my cabin table.  I’m very tempted to do it anyway, and would if I got a bit of encouragement.

Still, cheer up.  I’m a long way off yet.  And meanwhile I am yours affectionately

Keith