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'Captain Cook is the son of so and so etc. with cousins so and so who live in such and such.... ' In that manner, without costing him a cent, all the Scottish Cooks would learn of his repatriation the very next morning"]. I raced out of the dock and made for the agent's office, and on the way, in the street, I met you. You had not expected me to land so soon. It was a surprise. What had those eight months done to us? Your story could be read in your face, - even after two months of better food. Our joy was to be short lived. At the shipping office cable instructions awaited me from London: "Cook reports Sydney, Australia, for active service in the Southwest Pacific area." Here was escape, only to go back in. Here was to land in a strange country, without a home, or money, to find a roof, to find schools, to ease the burden from a weary mother. Undoubtedly I could have pleaded inability to go out again on active service. You cannot desert six minor children and an ailing mother. The fact of separation seemed more than we could bear. Yet, how could we silence our consciences if I did not go to help free those who were left behind? On the train from Lourenco Marques to Durban the thought came: "God has saved you thus far, He can do so a thousand times if it be His will." It was a continuous fight in the Union of South Africa to get any kind of service if one had a large family and was a serviceman. I knew it would not be easy for my family after I left for the forward area. A woman, with her husband absent, has a difficult time to get things for her brood. The stay-at homes are quick to take advantage of a woman alone. It was a depressing thought and a severe strain on Faith. However there were good men, and true, and older that I, out there determined to see the end, or meet death themselves. They, too, had families as precious as mine. What they could and must do was also for me.
Too soon I found myself "running the Easting down" on a slow old-fashioned passenger boat on the way to Sydney.
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