It has rained heavily and the wind has blown violently. It stopped for a little while as we were leaving Naples, and it was lovely to see daffodils on sale from stalls, and, as we came along the Autostrada, the white and pink of the almond blossoms, a grand sight. When we came back (there was no air mail) we had orders to move down into the last billet remaining to the unit, and so we had to bring everything on board the truck in a hurry and come here. And NOW, another chap and I have our beds in a passage 14 feet long by 3 feet wide. (As I write I have my back to one wall and my feet on the opposite one.) You can imagine how it is perhaps. I dunno. You are a civilian, after all, and the ways of the Army are (thank goodness) hardly civilised. When we got here, no one had any plans for us. In the Sergeants’ and Officers’ quarters there are many spare rooms. Here, in this position of a Fascist millionaire’s villa, there is nothing but this passage. When we first set eyes on it, it was filled with about two hundred half-pint beer bottles.
