Ap. 10 Shaikh Sa'ad [Shaykh Sa'd] Dearest Father. I think I might get a letter posted to you from here. It's the 5th day we have been on the way and we have another 4 days before us - a long journey, but the river is full and the current strong. It's also very boring. The Surgeon General, Blenkinsop, was on board up to Amarah ['Amarah, Al], but he left us there and my companions are 2 nurses 2 doctors and the ship's officer. And do you know one of the doctors is Brownlie of Middlesbrough! isn't that an odd conjunction. He is out here for a year. We have 600 troops on board, so closely packed on deck that one has to step over them to reach one's cabin, Indians almost all. Their officers are on board also, but they live in another part of the deck and I don't see much of them. It's one of the new ships with electric light and fans and very comfortable, but I shall be glad to get to Baghdad where so many interesting things are happening.
We had an hour or two at 'Amarah and I spent the time breakfasting and gossiping with the Philbys - he is A.P.O. there. It was uncommon hot, over 90° but next day a little rain fell and cooled the air. All day yesterday we ran through the wide level lands of the Bani Lam, not much cultivation but a great deal of grazing ground and the tents drawn down to the river and surrounded by flocks. Horses too, the Bani Lam are noted horse breeders. In the afternoon the Persian hills loomed out of the haze, quite close to us really - the foothills are only 16 miles from the river, but partly hidden in heat mist and looking all the taller, for eyes unaccustomed to anything taller than a palm tree, for the veil through which you sought for their summits.

Today we shall pass through the battlefields - there's nothing to see in the stretching plain I believe, but the imagination clothes it. Tonight we should be near Kut [Kut, Al (Kut al Imara)]. It's strange isn't it to be treating all these tragic places merely as stages of a journey. Goodbye dearest - your very affectionate daughter Gertrude