Tuesday 16th September 1941

In hospital with malaria,at Cairo.

Extracts from the paper:

War Communiqué: Tobruch. “Our patrols were active, penetrating deep into enemy lines. Enemy bombing was on a heavier scale... On the Eastern Sector an enemy patrol supported by tanks, over-ran a listening post containing 6 men... The tanks were dispersed by our artillery fire, one being captured... Enemy artillery fire on this Sector was intensive but caused little damage and few casualties...”

Poem: “Epitaph” by Morley Brooke. “I have often thought;”

The desert is a hateful place,
A lonely space for man to die,
So dun a waste of sand and sun
To be the tomb of any race.

Perhaps it does not matter much:
For death is friend, not always foe
And I who long for trees and rain
In death may get them back again.
It does not matter overmuch”