Letter from Roy Bruce to Maud Bruce

Received two rather delightful
letters from you yesterday, for which many
thanks. They seem brighter and more
cheerful than most of your letters have been
for some time.

Several of mine must have
gone astray from what you write and also
several of yours to me are missing. Perhaps
some day they will turn up

There is no news from this
end, beyond reconnaissance and air raids-
we have lost a few men & horses, nothing
heavy, that will come any day when we
start to dislodge this force. I see some
of the N.Z. papers have been making rather
too much of what we have been doing.

I hope your ideas are correct
that this war will finish this year, but
I am afraid it doesn't look much like it
this end. I hear that London has
lately been posted with placards "The war will
end suddenly". Let us hope for the best.

I don't quite see how you make the
war last 42 months and end this year?
To the end of this year is only 28, there is
another year to go.

I hear M rs Duncan Murchison (she
was a Miss Mathias ) has taken a house
at Highfield . If you have the time
and inclination you might call on her;
her husband is one of my subalterns. I
met her in Christchurch before we let, at
the Guthries'.

Good for Laura , give them both my
love and good wishes when you write. I
have lost the address. I always knew
Edith was a sportswoman.

Say old girl don't let this Palmistry
& Psychometry get too big a hold on you,
dabble in it for amusement if you like,
but I do most strongly object to your
making money at it. Study it if you
want to, it might be a good stand by
for you, one never knows these troubled
times, but I absolutely forbid you to
make anything out of it while I am
away.

Very glad you won a medal & did

well in the Coronation Medal. Stick to
your golf.

I like that scrap of yours "Day's
pursuit of Night". I am no judge of
poetry but to my heathenish ideas it seems
to flow more easily than many things
you have written.

Very sorry Marian has had diptheria,
give her my love also M rs Hay . I hope
they are flourishing.

I cannot understnad why Frank
has not got his commission long ago.
Hope he gets it soon. Where is he now &
what is he doing?

Don't see why you should do all
the prophecying in the family - what about
my prophecy quite a long time ago of an
alliance between Japan & Russia ? I see
it has eventuated - that is what we have
to look to in the future. Probably not in
our time.

I see you have been having a clean up
of cupboards etc. Jolly good thing, should
have been done years ago. For goodness'
sake burn up everything you can. Never
mind keeping things that may come in later

on for Helen etc. My dear, they never
will. Make up your mind to a clean
sweep of those overflowing bins of rubbish,
you will be much happier when it is
all out of the road; and so shall I to
know there is not so much to attract
dust.

You know I am beginning to get
quite afraid of you with all your sciences,
when I read you had taken up the
science of "figures", I felt quite pleased, because
I thought at last here is something I can
follow you in, but I was quickly undeceived;
you see I thought you meant "figures"
male or female. The awakening was awful.
You look after your own figure my dear,
that is all the "figures" connected with
you I want to know anything about.
Those other figures may be alright, but
just you come out here and run about
Gallipoli and the Sinai desert for a couple
of years and see how much attention you
will pay to the fact (undisputed) that 5 + 4
- 1 + 2 make 10 and 10 is lucky. I am
quite prepared to believe it my dear, but
as I said before the other kind of figure

is the only one I worry about. I can
hear you exclaim: "Wretch, brutalised &
materialised by war". Ha, ha, quite true
my dear, you don't know what you are
up against this time. By the way, don't
you think you flatter the Kaiser , calling
him Antichrist ?

Did I ever give you the names of my
squadron officers:- Capt n Gordon , 2 nd in command,
Lieutenants Freeth ( Blenheim ) Bowron (late 8 th )
Murchison ( Chch Christchurch ) Melville ( England ). All quite
good fellows.

So long old girl, let me know your
ideas of England or Egypt because you
will be in one or the other before long if
this war doesn't stop soon.

All my love to you both dear one
Roy .