March 3 Dearest Father. We are within half an hour of Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)] but as I believe I shall just catch a mail, I will send you a line from the ship and post it immediately after I arrive. I've come on a transport; the mail boat was small and dirty so they put me onto this one with 8 young men bringing out drafts as fellow passengers. It has been very comfortable and pleasant - two rather warm muggy days in the Indian Ocean and the rest delightful. It is even a little cold still. It interests me immensely coming into this country from this direction, which I have never done before. We have been steaming up the river all the morning, through a familiar landscape of palm groves and Arab huts with apricot trees blooming here and there in untidy mud and walled gardens - I'm so glad to see it all again and I feel as if I were in my own country once more, and welcome it, ugly though it is. Now it remains to be see whether they find a job for me or send me away without delay.
We have wireless news of the Verdun attack which seems to have been repulsed by the French, but nothing as yet about Kut [Kut, Al (Kut al Imara]. One feels - and indeed is - awfully far away, and the echoes of war in French which must to you sound so deafening are nearly lost here under those of Mesopotamia and Armenia. I did not catch my mail before I left India so that I have no news from you since I think Jan. 28. I hope the Indian mail will come up in a day or two and bring me letters. I'll have more news of my doings and plans to give you next time I write.

I wish I knew how Maurice is and were certain that he is not going back to France yet. Your ever affectionate daughter Gertrude