T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 505

LH 4/13/R-2 No 7, I.A.F. Barracks, 71 Sqdn, Ramsnagar, From rotg SSQR/7 540 Trmer Flight Lieutenant Plymouth 1.6.99. Dear Flight Lieut-Burley, I have owed you a letter for a long time; but my life has had its hectic passages since I left Purniah. There was an interval of nearly a year at Hirnapur, an excellent, remote and comfortable little fort in Waziristan, where I acted as detachment clerk and was perfectly happy: then came the return Afghan campaign in Dunsik and Germany, and a panic on the Frontier of the Government of India, Which departed me at a night's notice. The issue of that, naturally, was a row in London, and I nearly got the sack from the R.A.F. for being a nuisance to them (saved only by the patens fact that ...one man knows more nuisance to myself). Eventually it blew over and I have been normally posted to Catternter, and hope for a quiet interval till the next row/shooper half-abilios. They seem to happen in periods, but somehow muddling it makes no diffence what I do or do not do. Anything is good enough for the Press. Of course it is really not an injury to have been sent back to England; but a tremendous benefit. Only I'd agreed with an American to do them a translation of a Greek book (for a second fee, seeing that it's Armstrong, work) and the leisure of life in India made a spare time job rather a delight than otherwise. In England we work in the air-corps, and so haven't either the time or the ... to do much, therefore the job is becoming rather a burden. Catternter is a quietly decent station; rather new, but it feels promising. I've begun unluckily by clicking Fire Piquet over the Easter holiday - hard isn't bad, but the Easter was done as much holidays as duty, as I do. That is the firm conviction of at least half the airmen enlisted!