LANCE CORPORAL BOLTE WRITES FROM ENGLAND
[Abstracts from letters from Charles G.Bolte '41 are printed through the courtesyof his father. The Dartmouth delegates inthe King's Royal Rifles, Bolte, John F.Brister '41, and William P. Durkee Ill '41,are moving toward their commissions inone of Britain's most noted infantry regiments:.]
60th King's Royal Rifles Winchester, England
Me Lord: The Letterhead (House of Commons) is souvenir of me last trip to London, a week ago, when a couple of Major-Generals showed us about the town, to the ruins, to Parliament, the Tower, St. Pauls, East End, and all that I wrote you about on Sunday. I use such grand stationery to show my opinion of your letter of Sept. 19 which came today (setting a record) and bringing good news about nearly everything. What is this colossal check? You ask me "the disposition you want of the $15O I have received from Dean Bill"—I turn somersaults of joy and surprise. I don't know where the gold is from, but I suppose it must be that wretched essay contest Thompson and McCormack and I were so despondent about.*
If it is that, and I can't imagine what else it could be, the level of college prose and American thinking has hit a new low. However I won't quibble. I'll take the money like a bitter-pill. Can you take the check and this letter to your bank and endorse it yourself, as my trustee? Or send it back to Dean Bill and have him make it over to you. I think it will be quicker if you cable it, through the Chase and the Winchester branch of the Westminster Bank. "Disposition you want made of it" sounds as if I should leave it to a favorite charity, but with 37 lbs. I can pay my debts and almost buy a motor bike.
Most encouraging about the packages (incidentally "Heinz" meant peanut butter, but the fig newtons are fine) though the addressing worries me.
Durk and Jack are both promised packages, but for reference: W. P. Durkee, 109 Onyx Ave., Balboa Island, Calif.; Dr. F. W. Blister, Ambler, Pa. Dr. Blister has our address here at Bushfield in Winchester, and would be pleased to hear anything from you. Jack has received two letters this week and is much happier.
Nice of you to think of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE but I wrote Harvey and gave him dope for class notes already. I don't want to overdo it; I have a fear of seeming to hog print, now. It looks like shouting.
Just now the lance-corporal's life is quite pleasant. There is an absolute minimum of responsibility, just enough to be noticeable, and I have to admit I like it better the more I have. I am more alive in front of a squad than shuffling in its ranks. Fawcett is an easy taskmaster, and let's me teach a section in Bren occasionally. While on drill I run about checking, shouting the time, and being obnoxious. The squad is half OCTU, nice boys who grin amiably, and half cockney, good guys who grin toothlessly. They all address me with marked respect, a phenomenon to which I am not yet accustomed, and call me "Corporal." Well Napoleon and Hitler were Corporals. I go into the dining hall without standing in line, and have to serve out food. There are many slack times when the squad is at P. T. or gas-lecture, and so I've read a lot and enjoyed it. We're strictly unpaid l/crpls but today got a quid each instead of 15 bob, so feel affluent and plan a foraging party into town tonight. (I've just finished my second week of living within my pay made possible by not smoking, drinking, writing only 2 letters, and getting several invitations out to dinner.)
The reading time has let me get into T. E. Lawrence's letters heavily, and I'm leading a sort of double-life, one my own, the other his. Absorbing—mine pleasant and monotonous, his suffering and deranged. The days are warm and sunny and we offer silent prayers for the Dodgers. If I can get a letter a week as good as yours today, I can't ask more. I expect I'll think of something, though.
I'm father of 4 kittens, born under my bed two days ago. Mother and children doing well and still in residence.
Sensational news today: Sir John wants us to get into action as quick as possible, so we're getting through the OCTU in four months after all, and going abroad on the first Near East draft. We were thrown into the slough of Despond last week with the announcement that OCTU would be five months, and then God-knows-howlong waiting at Chiseldon for a vacancy in a battalion, which would probably be still just training in England. We were full of talk about transferring to the Amer ican Army at once, but now all is serene again. We'll probably be out there in six months. "There" meaning Libya, Egypt, Arabia, Iran, Iraq—?
Now of course, this being the Army, the plan will change 5 or 6 times; but let us live in this fond hope, will you? Funny too that we are now excited about what we once took for granted, and what before that would have horrified us—back in the dear dead days when we expected commissions in December. These days we go on having a pleasant time but hardly contributing all-out to the war effort. In fact I thought of writing the President and saying that at least 75 shillings of LeaseLend funds are being misused every weekpay for 5 Yanks.
We had a good week-end in London. Mr. Winant had us in his office for an hour on Saturday, joking and reminiscing about the McLanes and his family; then on Sunday he took us to lunch at Claridge's. He is one of the most impressive guys, truly. He told us a lot about his life as a flyer in the last war, and spoke at length of his early days in politics, and of the need for young men today to get in touch with people and work up by merit rather than by influence at the top. He couldn't have been more generous or thoughtful—gave us each a carton of Luckies, invited L. to come along with us, and made us feel perfectly relaxed. Amazing how his intensity grips your attention in spite of his low voice. We felt we were butting in on his workthe Russian mission was just back. Anyway we five are Winant men and babbled, away from him, about getting home to campaign for his presidency. He has a great grasp of any subject, apparently; and this unending honesty and insight.
The American Ambassador and 5 LanceCorporals roaring together made quite a stir in Claridge's, full of Generals.
We also had fun at the Regent Palace Hotel, a madhouse on Piccadilly seething with Polish officers, flyers from all over, Dutch sailors, etc. We met a couple of boys in the Eagle Squadron and had some good home town stuff with them. Saturday we got drinking with a couple RAF boys, one of whom believe it or not worked on the Bridgeport Herald for a months, and they took us to a bottle-club: everything public closes at 11, so you have to know a member of a night club.
Incidentally the other three volumes of "The War Years" were borrowed by Bill Lowry '41 at the end of the year and never returned. He's a brother Beta and lives in Kansas City—the Alumni Records Office would have his address. Can you act on this? Mr. Winant, Lincolnesque, a close student of Lincoln, and a discerning owner of books, makes me want those books back.
Pre-OCTU cadre started this week: a touch more interesting, tactics, map-reading, section-leading beginning to come along.
DIPLOMAT TURNS COLLEGE PROFESSOR " John Pelenyi, former Hungarian Minister to the United States, chats with ThomasWorthen '42 (center) and Robert C. Barnum Jr. '43 after a lecture in his popular defensecourse in power politics.
["The prize money is shared by Bolte, Richard B. McCornack '41, and Lawrence Thompson '41 ($150 each) for second place in a national contest for the best essays on "The Next Decade of American Foreign Policy," sponsored by the College of William and Mary last year—Ed.]
