Sheriff wrote home to Pips:

‘As we are waiting for orders to move which may be through any moment, I am just writing you a short line in case we find a difficulty in writing during the next few days’.

He had just received a long letter from his father which discussed the progress he had made with Laws’ History [the book Sheriff had previously requested]. He had reached the Volume on Charles II, and Sherriff reckoned ‘it must be a very interesting book.’ His father had also written of the quiet country cycle rides he had been enjoying, and Sherriff trusted that it would not be long before he was able to go home and join him:

‘Things are going fast and furious here now, and we can never tell what is going to happen next – all I can hope is that I shall be one of the fortunate ones to come through safely and one can do nothing more than that – and to fall back on philosophy to save ones mind’.

He hoped that he would be able to write ‘occasional lines’ to Pips in the coming days, but knew that his father would be patient, ‘for you know what difficulties there are in writing’.

[Next letter: 2 August]