The thought that I might have passed W.O.S.B. and have gone to England, and the thought that—had my officer not postponed my L.I.A.P. by a fortnight—I would have missed this chance of a life-time (I’m being posted to Klagenfurt after L.I.A.P. and shall thus not be returning to Italy, fills me with horror; and I will try to remember this next time I’m disappointed about something, because my plans don’t work out quite according to my ideas—and I shall remember that in that case they will work out better.

It all came about like this. We were suddenly given Monday, 12th November, ofi duty for the commemoration of Armistice on the 11th, which was a Sunday, and we would therefore be free in any case—or have the half day at least. So I started talking to a girl, who had a boy-friend in Foggia, trying to find out what the possibilities of transport were. Well, the girl said there was hardly any transport on the road, that there was nowhere to stay in Foggia as there are only officers’ clubs up there, that the district was badly bombed and desolate, and that the whole scheme was most inadvisable without transport, but if one had a car one could make it in four to five hours. Well, I got terribly excited at the thought and talked to my Irish friend Bita, and we started scheming. So we put in for a sleeping-out pass to Foggia, and said transport had been arranged.