page 125 — September 1941

Thursday 25th

Instead of MT we had to dig potatoes; the machine didn’t arrive so we did it with forks, and got a jaw from PSN for clod throwing.[The school had cultivated a potato field.] … zhk zfd zmb zsd

Friday 26^th

… lecture on Rec. patrols and army ritual in JTC … I have nearly finished learning my Russian nouns—slow but I hope quite sure. zct zlu zru

  (Yes, no?)

October

Wednesday 1^st

More school—what a monotonous life this is; one thinks largely of food—there are no other excitements. … What a life and what a world this is. But how nice we’re going to make it. zem zfd zpn

Thursday 2^nd

Had a good dream before waking up—I was biking and saw 3 other blokes fall off (actually saw this on Gannel yesterday), and then went to meeting where I sat next to Goering who got up and said he’d murdered Hitler (this was in Germany). Cries of ‘long live the German republic’, which when I remembered I changed to the ‘united soviet of socialist Germany’ (for ‘Germany’ put ‘world’ and I’m right). … zsy zpn

Saturday 4^th

[beach rugger] … no ball having appeared, we played a very poor and silly game with a tennis ball, which amounted to a rather poor free fight. I played not very hard—I can never run so well as most people, I don’t know why. RJC got very mashed up—bits of tongue and lip missing. zsp zac zfr

After tea we went to the Gannel, and biked through it as the tide was over the road. We saw little. … zcy

Thursday 9th

News none too good. Germans have Orel, 200 miles S. of Moscow, and an important railway junction. Russian position precarious. … Letter zru zlb