Tuesday 18th March 1941

Moved further south and further into the Sidra Desert. The oasis village of Agedabia is well behind us now and El Ageila (rumoured to be either a no-man's-land or in enemy hands) lies ahead. We are in bivouac and move into our position tonight. Monotonous travelling; moving too fast to do any reading so there's nothing to do except dream. Unfortunately I brood rather than dream or think. Hour after hour...

Never free in the heart, never free in fact, never free... Blaguardly Don Juan, now you'll pay. Anyway out? Anyway out? Can't be happy now. Got to pay. Want to wash all the other years out; different now, want to be single hearted... Too late to be single hearted! You can't marry anyone else! If you can be free you can't be free in the heart, you can't marry anyone else...

Hour after hour... Brooding quite stupidly, for nothing constructive comes out of it...

The fore-going paragraph could have been written for every day of the journey down and back again – except when I was driving and so had something else to think about. That's a fair summary of my broodings at any time since we came to the desert last autumn and had time to brood. But it's worst when we're travelling. At other times one can find something to do, or one can read a book. and it's grown worse lately as my longing has increased; previously it didn't matter so much as I felt sort of wooden and didn't care greatly what happened.

Now – round and round and round go my thoughts, getting nowhere. Like a squirrel in a bloody cage.