Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)] Dec 15 Dearest Father. I must write before the mail comes in - it's late - and as I had no letters from home last week I'm rather hoping it will bring me a double supply. I wish it would bring me some clothes, but that's too much to expect. All I've had is the enclosed which doesn't afford material for detailed enquiry. A firm which sends out documents of this kind is not one which I would readily employ, nor do I feel any confidence in it. We have just had news of the move onto the Hai, but no details yet. It wil be a very satisfactory business if successful and immensely improve our position in this country, strategically and politically. But the telegrams from home are even more interesting. As far as I can see the new Cabinet looks like business if Lloyd George can keep it together. I hope he can; this isn't a time to think about anything but the prosecution[?] of the war. It's an odd war council. I should not have thought that Milner, with his long absence from affairs, was a suitable man, but I'm all for a small and despotic War Council, and if those are the men who will work best together, why so be it. The preposterous German peace proposals, preposterous though they are, are a great beam of hope. The Central European Powers must be nearer the end than we thought, even if the immediate impulse should be (as it well may) the Roumanian success and the accompanying conviction that Germany will never be in a better position to lay down peace terms than she is now. Reuter is very vague, however; we have heard nothing of a precise kind as yet and I shall not really know much of the dessous for another month, till letters and papers arrive, in fact.
I'm glad of the change in Egypt though I personally regret the MacMahons - she's such a dear. But he is not good enough, not decisive enough for times like these, and the Sirdar with his energy and his unexampled grasp of Arab politics, is the very man for the job. He will take a strong line, I know, and as it's a line which has my most hearty sympathy, I look forward to it with satisfaction. And I look forward some day to making his acquaintance. I should have gone up to see him last winter if I had been in Egypt longer.

Altogether things look rather bright this week. Bless you, dearest. Do you know I was thinking yesterday what I would pick out as the happiest things I've done in all my life and I came to the conclusion that I should chose [sic] the old Italian journeys with you, those long ago journeys which were so delicious. I've been very unhappy in the big things always, and very happy in the little things - small change for happiness I suppose it is. Except only in that very big thing, complete love and confidence in my own family - I've had that always and can't lose it. And you are the pivot of it. But for that, there are no big things left now - Heaven forbid that there should be - and I don't care much one way or the other what happens, except that sometimes I should very much like to see you. But I'm quite content here, interested by the work and very conscious that I couldn't anywhere be doing things that would interest me so much. The people I see and meet are all kind and pleasant; I don't care about any of them particularly, but I like working with Sir Percy, and the others fill in odd moments, of which there aren't many. General MacMunn is the one I like best. He turns up most afternoons for a little walk or a little motoring in the desert. He's away now, and when I'm left to myself I take far less respectable walks, for I scramble about among the palm gardens and talk to the peasants whose reed huts are scattered along the canals. The world contrives to look autumnal - scarcely wintry yet - in spite of the eternal green of the palms. There's a yellow mimosa in flower, fluffy sweet-smelling balls, a very heavenly little tree, albeit thorny. Yes, there's always plenty of small change, isn't there! Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude