First Letters and Parcels
The coming of one’s first letter was a memorable event in camp life. The immediate impulse was to retire with it to the remotest corner of the court—as a dog with a bone, or a lover with a billet-doux—and there devour it, and for days after one was continually impelled to a re-perusal. A Portuguese officer who had made a vow, Nazarite-wise, not to shave or cut his hair until such time as news would come from the far country, was three and a half months in camp before he received his first letter. Then, amid loud laughter and cries of “Barbier! Barbier!” he departed with the precious epistle in his hand, and later in the day made his appearance, looking not unlike a shorn lamb!
The arrival of the first parcel was an event of even more general interest and import. If it were a clothing parcel it would contain a change of raiment, as grateful and as welcome as the wedding garment. If it were a food parcel it enabled you to extend pleasant hospitalities in more necessitous directions—one of the privileges and compensations of camp life.
You pass your bread ration to the recently arrived officer who is your neighbour at dinner. “Do you care to have this bread, old chap? I have plenty.” He is an Australian, and there is considerably over six foot of him to be fed. He gives a gulp and a gasp now. “My God,” he says, “I thought I wasn’t to be able to say ‘Yes’ quick enough!”
I received my first parcel after two months of captivity. One officer, after the lapse of many barren moons, received twenty-six packets—an entire waggon load—at one time! Give me neither poverty nor riches!