A Story of War

I wander out to Shepheard’s on the Monday and meet Greenaway again and then to the Brevet Club and back to bed. I wake next morning with quite a hangover, which is dispelled when I have a few gins and a very excellent lunch with, and on, J.J. Saunders at the “Aperitif” in Jermyn Street. That night I go to Shepheards for a drink, solo, and meet a marine, one Robin Graham, and some RAF penguins (JDW: officers with no operational flying experience (comes from the fact that “Penguins don’t have wings”) . I also grab one Marjorie Hicks, a V.A.D., and we all go on to the Brevet Club. I then take Marjorie home to the Strand Palace Hotel and set to work in her room, but am foiled as she declares she is cold, and I cut my losses at 12.30 and walk home to bed.

Wednesday I come down to Andover and meet Peter Mackenzie on Waterloo Station. We go over to Larkhill for a couple of days and see guns and do shoots from O.P.s. Today we start flying – but low cloud and rain and nothing up to lunchtime. Last night Loveless (RCAF) and I go to the local pub and then to some village hall dance about four miles away, on our feet, but I don’t get myself organised, though it seems to be there. Loveless gets a date and damn near a fight out of it.