whizz-bang, because it doesn't give you a chance--it pounces and is on
you the same moment that it bangs. There's so much I wish that I could
tell you. I can only say this, at the moment we're making history.

What a curious birthday letter! I think of all your other birthdays--the
ones before I met these silent men with the green and yellow faces, and
the blackened lips which will never speak again. What happy times we
have had as a family--what happy jaunts when you took me in those early
days, dressed in a sailor suit, when you went hunting pictures. Yet, for
all the damnability of what I now witness, I was never quieter in my
heart. To have surrendered to an imperative self-denial brings a peace
which self-seeking never brought.

So don't let this birthday be less gay for my absence. It ought to be
the proudest in your life--proud because your example has taught each of
your sons to do the difficult things which seem right. It would have
been a condemnation of you if any one of us had been a shirker.

"I want to buy fine things for you
And be a soldier if I can."

The lines come back to me now. You read them to me first in the dark
little study from a green oblong book. You little thought that I would
be a soldier--even now I can hardly realise the fact. It seems a dream
from which I shall wake up. Am I really killing men day by day? Am I
really in jeopardy myself?

Whatever happens I'm not afraid, and I'll give you reason to be glad of
me.
Very much love,