sweetest buck, darling buck (my luck and my love),

your letter is such a wonderful present. i am never sure that you have received the ones i sent, but it seems u must have gotten them all, i'm so happy for that. i am in thirteenth (definitely our lucky number) heaven and i love you more than yesterday. (i know! it is rather impossible, i think too, but that's how it is!)

i will write you again soon, but right now i want to read your letter. again.

i am so happy and i miss u so much.

ruby

I have been sitting here for a while trying to figure out how to start this letter, should I start Dear Ruby? no, that sounds as if I'm writing to my Mom, and that you are certainly not! Dearest Ruby? that sounds trite and insincere and does not say anywhere near what I mean to say, but I have to turn the light out in this tent in one hour so I do need to get started because I have such a lot to say, so I guess I will just say,

My love, I have been away from the forward base for over a month, which means I have not received or been able to send mail.

I have been frantic, and have thought all sorts of things, I have loved you, hated you, and all the shades in between!

When we got back last night the first things most of the guys did was to have a hot shower and a cold beer. I went straight to the admin tent to check for mail. They served me first because I stink! I haven't had a proper shower in almost a month and even the scorpions find sweeter bodies to sting!

Lo and behold I had a bunch of mail!! Fuck the shower and the beer! What does one more day of stink matter? I began greedily reading your words until I realized they were all out of order! so I figured out the dates and started again at the beginning. I was afraid that each one I opened would bring bad news, so I skipped to the end first to see if you had signed it with love! Each letter was a trial until I had read the last few lines!!

You know I cannot tell you where I am or what I have been doing, but ninety percent of my time is spent cleaning my weapon, or checking to see that the others have cleaned theirs. The other ten per cent is fucking terrifying! enough said.

I love your letters, every word of them goes deep into my heart, but they also frighten me. The intensity of your feelings leaves me breathless. I feel the same but I can't express it as well as you. before we go out they tell us to forget our loved ones, because if we don't concentrate on the job in hand it could cost us our lives. They are right, of course. But I am consumed by you, there have been times when the bastards could have driven a tank past me and I wouldn't have seen them! I'm so full of you. The nights are the best, I can lay in the shithole I sleep in and think of you. I mentally kiss and caress every inch of you, over and over again. They put stuff in our rations to stop us getting too excited but it doesn't always work, and that is very painful because we have to stay still and silent. You just wait until I get home! You say you want to die with me and I know exactly how you feel, I am not frightened of dying. I am frightened of coming home in a mess, and not being able to love you properly. I keep hearing that song by Kenny rogers about her taking her love to town, that would kill me, and if I ever meet him I'll fucking kill him!

I loved your poem and I hope you have my heart in your heart because that is it's home.

I'm afraid I have been sleeping fully clothed for a while, so I'd better have a shower before I dream of your thirteen kisses, thirteen is my lucky number, but you will have to repeat it several times until I get the hang of it!

Please never cry over me, whatever happens, I love you, your soul, and all your flaws, I want to come home to you, in one piece, so much that it is dangerous, my guys have noticed that I'm not as focused as I was before I met you, I didn't care then.

I know that you feel insecure and I know that your temper sometimes drives you toward breaking the things you love, just to prove to yourself that they didn't love you properly, well let me tell you Ruby, I will not allow you to do that to us, my love is strong enough to fight off any assaults on it that you care to make and I will be outside your door the following morning with coffee and flowers. (And by the way, I don't want to come home and find some fucking hunk of a plumber in my bed either!)

I am going to have to close now to get this back to the admin block before they close it for fumigation!

Stay safe, my flower, and please stay mine, I love you with every part of me, and I will get back to you, write soon

Love, Buck