T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 69

To W.H.Brook,Esq.,Ebbu Vale 33&171 A/c Shaw R.A.F. UNIT Mount Batten Plymouth. 2.1.30 Dear Brook Don't believe more than 1/6th of any yarn you hear of mx me; or 1/16th if it is printed. I never do. They say I don't answer letters because I con't write letters without some good reason. Or more than ten letters a week. Hang it all, a fellow must sl...p some time! And letter writing is what the P.A.P. call a "bind". Good for the proxy for the Christening! I hope the kid yells blue murder all the time. I should, if a padre picked me up & poured cold water on my face. As for coming - yes, a Brough cobs eat up the miles; but I seldom go out of camp, for one reason and another, often financial. Reason is not new: Plymouth - not a Wednesday afternoon run: and I don't ever week end - so I shall not hope to turn up till I get my month's annual, in the late summer, perhaps. I will write you again before that. As for Arabia - that was twelve years ago, & I've got old & wise, and have forgotten it all. What a lovely place Rumm was?! I believe nobody has been there since 1918. Yours T E Shaw