raids became intolerable to Manning, and she soon moved back to Cairo, where in late 1941 she became press attaché at the United States Legation. In her spare time, she worked on Guests at the Marriage, an unpublished prototype for The Balkan Trilogy, as well as short stories and poetry, some of which she sent to Stevie Smith in the hopes of getting them published. Over the years, Stevie had brooded over Manning's desertion of their friendship to marry Reggie Smith, and around this time Stevie's jealousy took an overt form; in 1942 she wrote a poem entitled "Murder", in which a man stands beside a grave and admits, "My hand brought Reggie Smith to this strait bed – / Well, fare his soul well, fear not I the dead". In subsequent reprintings, the name "Reggie Smith" was replaced by "Filmer Smith", veiling the allusion, but Manning found out and was furious. During her time in Egypt, Manning became a contributor to two Middle East-based literary magazines, "Desert Poets" and "Personal Landscapes", founded by Bernard Spencer, Lawrence Durrell and Robin Fedden. The last sought to explore the "personal landscapes" of writers experiencing exile during the war. The founders, like Manning, maintained a strong attachment to Greece rather than an artistic and intellectual engagement with Egypt. In remembering the departure from Greece Manning wrote "We faced the sea / Knowing until the day of our return we would be / Exiles from a country not our own." During their time in Egypt and Palestine Manning and her husband maintained close links with refugee Greek writers, including translating and editing the work of George Seferis and Elie Papadimitriou. Manning described her impressions of the Cairo poetry scene in "Poets in Exile" in Cyril Connolly's magazine Horizon. She defended the writers from the claim of a London reviewer that they were "out of touch", suggesting that their work was strengthened by their access to other cultures, languages and writers. Her review was much critiqued by those featured, including Durrell, who objected to Spencer's poetry being praised at his expense. In 1942 Smith was appointed as Controller of English and Arabic Programming at the Palestine Broadcasting Service in Jerusalem; the job was to begin later but in early July, with the German troops rapidly advancing on Egypt, he persuaded Manning to go ahead to Jerusalem to "prepare the way". Palestine The couple were to