Saturday 20th April 1940

There’s a kit and tent inspection every morning but a special one for Saturdays. Went in for a bit of extra bullshit in my tent this time. Some of us burnished the tops of the corks in our water bottles and the final piece de resistance was to sweep the sand at either end of the tent, so that it looked nice and smooth. The first inspecting officer arrived just as we were leaving the tent to fall-in. Seeing man after man leap awkwardly from the tent doorway so as to clear the area of swept sand, he laughed, “That’s a bit foxy!”. Eventually he too sprang over the virgin strip, in order to get inside the tent!

Bloody hot early in the morning; but dammit, at about 9 o’clock the usual cold wind sprang up and it was no longer hot, and if one lit a cigarette the taste was blown away.

Podgie Pond, Ling, Dean and I walked down to the Snakes Pit in the afternoon but did not go in as it was so cold. In the evening we all went to the pictures in Nathanya. Not a bad screen but shocking talkie apparatus.

There are several schools of thought on the subject of our place in the war. Some are irritated that we stay here whilst there is fighting in France and Norway. Others, more prudent, hope to God that we stay here, with whole skins, until the war is over! Personally – Inshallah, I would like to be somewhere like France where there is occasional English leave. And I would not like to go through a war without some action. Nevertheless I love this climate and feel fitter here than I did in cold, damp old England. Probably we shall remain here to look after the Mediterranean countries – and very likely they’ll need looking after, later on and we shall get all the action we want.

Altogether, Inshallah!