Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)] March 30 Dearest Father. All the mails are very irregular owing to the fact that ships have to wait for convoys and I have had no letters for 3 weeks. I expect it's the same at your end, so don't be surprised if you get no letters. But the telegrams from home are most interesting reading. The advance in France seems to be overstepping any limits which the Germans can have assigned to it and one can't help hoping that we are approaching some decision. We are mainly occupied with our own affairs however. The linking up with the Russians is near and with it active opposition from the Turks will be for the moment at an end - altogether at an end perhaps if matters develop satisfactorily in Europe and in the Mediterranean. The Germans have so often surprised us by their reserve of strength, but surely they must be too nearly starved out by now to have much kick left in them. Meantime, until they let me go up to Baghdad, I have nothing to do. I have telegraphed to my chief asking if I may come up to him and await his reply. I read Arabic, do various odd jobs in the office and see people - and that's all. The centre of gravity has shifted up river and my job with it. This last week has been made very pleasant by having Sir Arthur Lawley here - he leaves today for India and when he gets back to England towards the end of May he is coming to see you, to give you news of me. He is a dear. He and the I.G.C. - now Sir George MacMunn - both came down from Baghdad last week and gave me accounts of it all which were deeply interesting. It's a great comfort to have the I.G.C. back. We go out motoring or on the river most evenings. Otherwise, except my own colleague A.P.O.s who have been passing through a good deal on their way to fresh posts, there's scarcely anyone interesting to talk to. The heat has not come but it's coming - one is beginning to feel the taste of it. The last few days have made a striking difference. Unless we have a little rain, as we might still, I'm afraid it means an early hot weather. (Incidentally I shall be deeply relieved to hear that my summer clothes are on their way!) The palm trees are in flower - there's a distant corner of the palm gardens past which I ride every morning, where there's a daily market of the male flowers, still in their stout green swathe, and I meet the peasants coming away from it with laden baskets of flower sheath. The fertilization is just beginning. The palm gardens are exquisite with undergrowing quince and orange in flower and yesterday I picked the first scarlet pomegranate blossom. Encore un détail intéressant - last night I was kept awake for the first time by mosquitoes! - Oh here's a mail! it's not all distributed yet but I have just read your letter of the 6th Feb and Mothers of the 7th and 14th Feb, with her enclosures of 9th Feb. (Mrs Mackinnon's letter) Oh bless you both! you don't know what it's like to have letters from you. I'm so sorry about Major Ruck - I fear he spins a bad cotton. And glad about Ivor's boy, many congratulations to them both. Also I'm very glad the hospital is to be closed for a fortnight and I hope it may be more. Your rations! I don't feel such a sybarite as I might (for being out of it) for the food here is so indescribably nasty that you're strictly rationed by personal distaste, if not by order. No, I can't come back this summer unless they no longer require my valuable services. I shan't stay unless I'm in Baghdad but though it's delivish [sic] hot there it's a better climate than Basrah. Your devoted daughter Gertrude