October 3rd, 1916.

Here I am a Requisitioning Officer again, this time for another Cavalry Brigade. I was sorry not to get back to my old comrades. Still, it is a change to work with new regiments. This Cavalry Brigade is a famous body of troops. To it belongs the honour of having been the first lot of Britishers in action in the war. While I like my duties, I am beginning to feel restive, and am longing to get back to the real battle zone. What think you of our new war machines? [Tanks were first employed on September 15, 1916. Editor.] I have had many opportunities of studying them on the move. One would scarcely believe it possible they could go over ground such as I have seen them comfortably traverse. No obstacle seems insurmountable to them. They are quaint-looking things, but, in spite of the Press correspondents, they are no more like to, or suggestive of, primeval monsters than a cow resembles a chaff-cutter.

Ireland is an enigma and no mistake. The man who settles the Irish problem will go down to history. The difficulty would appear to be to effect any rapprochement of the English and Irish national points of view, these having been determined by the different environments of the two races. In national life as in nature the law of natural selection operates.

I rejoice to say that I’ve got two horses again, one a big brown horse, very strong and a hard worker, the other a powerful bay mare. Neither is particularly good-looking, but I’ve learnt from experience that soundness and strength in a horse are more to be desired than good looks, especially when campaigning. It is seldom that you can combine all the qualities. Breed and blood tell in horses. A well-bred horse will outlast a common one, because it tries harder. What you want is a judicious mixture of breed and strength. My two horses are pretty well-bred and have great strength, and always try hard; so I’m pretty well off, I reckon.

I observe that those blighted Zeppelins have been about England again. But really the Zepp. is a colossal failure, whether you regard it from the point of view of doing military injury, or damage likely in any way to help Germany in the war, such as impairing the morale of the British people. The best reply to the Zepps. is being given day and night on the Somme, where hundreds of thousands of Boches must at present be wishing they had never been born. I am surprised they have stuck our bombardment as they have done, but I am bound to say that the Boche is by no means a coward.

I am at present deeply immersed in Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason.” It is a great work, and not by any means one to be read in a hurry. Every line is charged full with deep thinking. It appeals to me intensely. Kant’s was a gigantic mind.

November 3rd, 1916.

Our Cavalry Brigade has been on the move for some time. In these circumstances I am always busily employed. Every day that we move I go on with the brigade advance parties, go round the billets that the troops are going to occupy, and make all arrangements with the French inhabitants for a plentiful supply of fuel, straw and forage to be available for the troops when they arrive. The weather recently has been the reverse of clement. The first stages of the move were accomplished in pitiless rain, the more recent ones in weather fairly dry, but bitterly cold. Not that vicissitudes of weather worry me. I never enjoy life so much as when I’m fully occupied with hard work like that I am now doing, which is really useful and responsible.

The question of Ireland remains a perplexing one. We have two Irishmen in our mess, one a Unionist, the other a Nationalist. The impression one gets from them at least is the hopelessness of our being ever able to settle the Irish problem. It is largely, of course, a question of temperament. The Ulsterman with us is all for the “strong hand” policy, but I pointed out to him the absurdity of our adopting Prussian tactics, especially at this moment. He agreed, but steadfastly maintained that, judging purely from results, Balfour was the best Chief Secretary Ireland has ever had. He frankly admitted that Carson made himself liable to be tried for high treason at the time of the Larne gunrunning. He also agreed with me that to administer an irritant to a man recovering from brain fever is a very risky policy. In fact, we came round to the old conclusion in which, to quote “Rasselas,” “nothing is concluded.” It is a thousand pities that so able, attractive and intelligent a race as the Irish should have such an accursedly impossible temperament. It is the unimaginative, easygoing, supremely practical Englishman who is the ideal governor in this foolish world, not the hot-headed idealist.

November 10th, 1916.

I am starting off to-day on rather a big, albeit safe job, namely, purchasing all the hay and straw in a certain area on behalf of the Cavalry Division. It is an important commission and will take me about a week to execute.

We have arrived at another stagnant period in the war. That was a
happy definition of it as “long spells of acute boredom
punctuated by short spells of acute fear.”

What brilliant soldiers the French are! It amazes me that they should be able to “strafe” the Boches so constantly, and at points where one would least expect them to. The recapture of Douaumont was, in my opinion, one of the best bits of work in the war. Of course, the French Army is superbly generalled, and it has a military tradition second to none in the world. A nation that can boast of men like Vauban, Turenne, Conde, Soult, Massena, Ney, and Macdonald (I don’t mention Napoleon, because he was not really a Frenchman at all) has a glorious military tradition worth living up to.

On the other hand, I cannot withhold praise from the wonderful organisation of the Boches. The way in which they repeatedly take the bull by the horns and attack the encircling ring of their enemies at some new point is extraordinary. Where on earth did they find men for their Rumanian campaign? There can be no doubt that they are a very stiff foe to beat, and they are not easily “rattled” by failures or defeats. But it is undeniable that they were badly “rattled” on the Somme. British achievements there enable one to look with great hope to the future, when our full strength will be in the field. Man for man the German soldier is no match for the British Tommy.

I was amazed to read in the papers that the Dulwich 1st XV have been beaten by Merchant Taylors’. If that really happened, then truly it is a case of “Ichabod,” and “The glory is departed from Israel.”

November 17th, 1916.

I am still detached temporarily from Headquarters, travelling about in a motor-car for the purpose of securing local supplies of forage and straw in the area about to be occupied by the Cavalry Division. It is very interesting work, with a large human element in it; but one has difficulty in getting these French farmers and dealers to agree to our prices for their commodities. Almost always they want much more for them than is prescribed in our schedule of official prices. Taking note of all refusals to sell to us, because our prices are too low, I have to-day applied for permission to requisition the goods in these cases that is, to take the stuff over compulsorily, handing to the owner a note entitling him to draw so much money from the British Requisition Office, the amount being settled by us and not by the farmer or dealer. That is the way the French Military authorities do things. They, of course, are dealing with their own people. It is different with us, and French farmers and peasants think they are entitled to exact all they can from the English. The French authorities, acting through their A.S.C. or the local mayors, periodically call on the communes to supply them with so much forage, straw and other commodities. These quantities have to be supplied nolens volens and at prices fixed by the French Army. I can see ourselves being forced reluctantly to adopt the same procedure, at least in some cases, though it is much more pleasant for both parties when we can buy amicably and pay cash on the spot.

A number of the farmers with whom I had to deal recently are “permissionaires” they get pretty regular leave in the French Army. The peasant stock of the North of France has a knack of producing good fighting men they are an unromantic race, but amazingly industrious, shrewd, and very tough.

My car-driver is a Welshman from Pontypridd. He is one of the best drivers I’ve struck out here and a first-rate fellow to boot. He has played a lot of Rugby, having turned out several times on the wing for Cardiff. He is quite young, not much older than myself. Like most Welshmen, he has literary tastes, and has a real gift for reciting poetry.

The Alleynian duly to hand. Its monthly War record for the old school makes splendid, albeit mournful reading. How poignant to read the record in dates of Edkins’s life: “Born, 1896; left school, September, 1915; killed in action, 1916.” Judging from the official account, Frank Hillier must have done great work in earning the Military Cross. I see also that K. R. Potter has got the M.C. He is one of the most brilliant men Dulwich has produced. He was one of the two men to win a Balliol Scholarship in Classics in the second of those historic two years when we got two in each year a record equalled by few schools and beaten by none. J. S. Mann, who took a Balliol Scholarship at the same time as Potter, has been wounded in the trenches.

Deep was my grief to read of the death in action of R. F. Mackinnon, M.C., one of the finest forwards and captains who has ever worn the blue-and-black jersey. He was captain of the first fifteen in my first year at the school, 1908-9, in which we had a pack of forwards of strong physique and whole-hearted courage. Arthur Gilligan, who was in the same battalion as Mackinnon, told me he was absolutely without fear, and was continually working up little “strafes” of the Boches on his own.

November 22nd, 1916.

I have been up to the neck in work, having temporarily to do what is really three men’s work Brigade Supply Officer, Brigade Requisitioning Officer, and Divisional Forage Purchasing Officer the last a newly-created post under the direction of the Corps H.Q. It is no joke personally arranging the payments for all the forage in an area fifteen square miles by ten. To-day I found it impossible to continue and do the work efficiently without assistance. It is not so much the getting the forage as the amount of accounting that is involved. I fear I am a poor accountant at best, and the figuring involved in the new scheme (there are five enormous Army forms to fill up weekly, in addition to the ordinary business side of the transactions) has been taxing my energies and has taken up my time long after working hours. Major Knox, Senior Supply Officer of the Division (an old Dulwich man, at one time the Oxford Cricket Captain, and a splendid fellow to boot), spent about six hours to-day with me in completely checking our available resources. The fact is that the hay ration from England has been very considerably reduced for some reason, and we have to make up the deficiency out here, permission having been obtained from the French authorities to purchase and requisition in various Army areas. This permission was for a long time withheld, as the French wanted the local supplies for their own troops.

I am finding the War a boring business; the glamour has decidedly worn off. Oh, if we could but get through the Boche lines! As things are at present, there is no thrill and not much scope for initiative. It is just a sordid affair of mud, shell-holes, corpses, grime and filth. Even in billets the thing remains intensely dull and uninspiring. One just lives, eats, drinks, sleeps, and all apparently to no purpose. The monotony is excessive. My chief function in life seems to be the filling up of endless Army forms. I thoroughly sympathise with the recent protest from military men in the Spectator about the “Military Babu,” who is occupying an ever larger and larger place in the life of the Army. There will be a revolt one of these days against the fatuity of this eternal filling up of forms for no conceivable purpose.

It is not only myself, but many of my comrades who are bored by the War. To my mind there are only four really interesting branches in the Army: (1) Flying Corps; (2) Heavy Artillery; (3) Tanks, and (4) Intelligence. It must be intense reaction against the drab monotony of life at the Front that is responsible for the outbreak of frivolity that is said to have been the leading characteristic of life in London and elsewhere of late. The Englishman doesn’t like thinking; if he did, he would not be the splendid fighting man that he is.

In literature taste had gone to the dogs long before the War, and it seems to me that the War has hastened it on its downward path. It does seem to me a tragic pity that no great and inspiring work has sprung to birth in England from the contemplation of what the men of British race have achieved in this War, enduring such depressing conditions with so much fortitude and doing such glorious deeds whenever there is a chance for action.

November 29th, 1916.

More boredom and an incredible amount of figuring, until I loathe the very sight of pencil and paper. Thanks for parcels. Everyone is so kind that it afflicts me with a sense of shame. Not that any amount of gifts is too lavish for the brave men in the trenches, but for “peace soldiers,” like yours truly, it is very different. I am at present living in a beautiful chateau at a perfectly safe distance from the Front, in very pleasant country, with a motor-car and two horses at my disposal and every conceivable luxury. And then one is asked about the hardships that one endures! It really is too absurd. I am by no means the only one who feels like this, but I do think it is worse for a Celtic temperament than for an Anglo-Saxon one.

At last there seems to be a chance of escape from this luxurious life, for a circular has just come to hand from the O.C., A.S.C., of the Division, intimating that a number of transfers per month from the A.S.C. to really fighting units has been sanctioned by the War Office, together with a form to be filled up by officers desiring to transfer. Of course, I am putting my name down. I am deliberating whether to go for Infantry, Artillery, or Machine-Gun Corps.

December 8th, 1916.

I was medically examined yesterday, and passed fit for general service. To-day I filled in the application form, applying for (1) Infantry, (2) M.G.C., (3) Royal Artillery. You will doubtless want my reasons for this step. (1) It is obvious that they need Infantry officers most. It is, therefore, clearly the duty of every fit officer to offer his services for the Infantry. I have been passed fit by an entirely impartial medical officer, after a searching medical examination; therefore it is my duty to go. (2) From the personal point of view I have long been most dissatisfied with the part I am playing in the War, and I jump at the chance of a transfer.

I don’t pretend to be doing the “young hero” stunt. I am not out for glory. I have probably seen far more of the War as it really is than any other A.S.C. officer in the Division. I know the War for the dull, sordid, murderous thing that it is. I don’t expect for a minute to enjoy the trenches. But anything is better than this horrible inaction when all the chaps one knows are undergoing frightful hardships and dangers. For a long time the argument of physical incapacity weighed with me. I was forced to admit that if, on account of defective eyesight, I was not sound for Infantry work, it was better that I should stick to a job for which I was fit than do badly one for which I was not fit. But I have now been passed fit for general service, and this being so I would be a craven to hold back from the fighting-line.

If we are to win this War it will only be through gigantic efforts and great sacrifices. It is the chief virtue of the public-school system that it teaches one to make sacrifices willingly for the sake of esprit de corps. Well, clearly, if the public-school men hold back, the others will not follow. Germany at present [the Germans had recently overrun Rumania] is in the best situation speaking politically she has been in since those dramatic days of the advance on Paris. The British effort is only just beginning to bear fruit, and we are called on to strain every nerve in our national body to counteract the superb organisation of the Boches. That can only be done by getting the right man in the right job. Men with special qualifications must be given the chance to exercise them. All A.S.C. officers should be business men; they could perfectly well also be men over military age, as the work demands none of the qualifications of youth. For a young chap like myself, without any special qualification or training, but full of keenness, with good physique and just out of a public school, the trenches are emphatically the place.

Well, anyway, there it is. My application is in, and I am now just waiting for G.H.Q. to accept me for the Infantry. I should not be surprised if I am back home at Christmas in order to train. An excellent recommendation from my C.O. accompanied my transfer papers. I also had a satisfactory interview with the Major-General commanding the Division, who, I believe, added his own recommendation.

December 20th, 1916.

I can’t tell you how relieved I was to get the Pater’s last letter, and to feel that we see the matter in the same light. It lifted a weight from my mind, as I will frankly admit that I was much worried, torn one way by my conscience and another by the fear that my action would cause displeasure and grief at home. Now, with the Pater’s letter in my possession, I can go ahead with a light heart. There can be absolutely no question that I’ve done the right thing. It is a mere coincidence that my personal feelings have long tended in the same direction. I saw the path of duty before me absolutely clear. Up to date I have never “let you down,” and I don’t think I shall do so this time.

By the way, in my transfer papers, I have expressly stipulated
for a temporary commission, as I have no idea at all of becoming
a Regular.

January 1st, 1917.

Hearty wishes for a happy New Year, wishes which always seem to me more serious than the greetings that pass at Christmas time. With most people Christmas is a purely festive season, but with the end of the old year comes the necessity of looking forward to a new period perhaps to be joyful, perhaps otherwise; anyway, a period on which it is necessary to enter as far as possible with confidence. From the general point of view that is not an easy matter as things stand. I am bound to say I am getting pessimistic about the War. The chief trouble is the total lack of action that characterises it. This grovelling in ditches is a rotten, foolish business in many ways though to me sitting in comfort and safety behind the lines is a great deal worse.

We passed a pleasant Christmas. I had dinner and tea with the men of the Brigade Headquarters the former one of the most pleasant functions I have ever attended. I much prefer a ceremony of this kind along with Demos to the “Tedious pomp ... and grooms besmeared with gold” that Milton denounces so scathingly.

I am sorry the Dulwich 1st XV didn’t have a very good season. To judge from the photos in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic, the forwards don’t know how to pack. One of the “scrum” photographs is one of the best illustrations of how not to pack that I have ever struck. It seems to me that there has been a lack of training. But what I do remark with joy is the care that has been taken with the games. All will be well with the school if the games are keen.

I have just been reading the first book that I’ve found that absolutely gets the atmosphere of the Western Front namely, “The Red Horizon,” by Patrick McGill, the navvy poet. It really is great. He doesn’t spare the horror of the thing one iota, but it “gets one right.” “Sapper” has a good picture of the fighting man, but a very bad one of the Front. McGill has got a pretty good one of the man and a superb one of the Front. He describes to a “T” one’s sensations under shell-fire.

January 11th, 1917.

Congratulate me! I am, as I have every reason to believe, on the verge of the most stupendous good fortune that has ever yet come my way. Last night I got a wire ordering me to present myself at Headquarters, Heavy M.G.C., for interview with the Colonel-in-charge. Well, I went up for my interview this morning, and was tested for vision by the Colonel with my glasses on. Finally he told me that he was going to recommend me for the Tanks, which means that the thing is as good as settled. I had not dared to hope for such luck, owing to the fact of my not having any special qualification. However, my usual marvellous good fortune seems not to have deserted me. It means just this, that I am going to be a member of the most modern and most interesting branch of the service. So great is my delight that I scarcely know whether I am standing on my head or my heels. The transfer will, I fear, prevent my coming home on leave for a time. Anyway, it’s more than possible that I shall come back to England to train. I hope not, for despite my earnest desire more than you can ever guess to see you all again, I think it is far better to remain on active service, if possible, when on duty.

I’ve been pretty busy with my brigade work recently, though to nothing like the degree of November and the first fortnight of December. One meets strange types of humanity on this sort of duty. You can divide the countryfolk round these parts into three lots: (a) The farmers on the whole honest, but decidedly avaricious; the French farmer’s one fear in life is that his neighbour across the way is being paid at a higher price than he himself. (b) The average merchant, who is on the lookout for making a bit in all sorts of illegal ways, such as cheating us by underweight. (c) The honest middlemen, who, I regret to say, are few and far between. As far as possible we always try to deal with the farmers direct, as they are fairly honest, though very obstinate. An honest middleman is very useful, but there are not many of him. Business difficulties are increased by the extraordinary accent in which the country people hereabouts talk. Sometimes even French interpreters find themselves at a loss. I am getting into it famously, and can even speak with the local accent myself, to a certain extent.

Did you see that my old colleague, E. C. Cartwright, has got the M.C.? His reports of 1st XV matches in Evans’s year were the feature of The Alleynian, as were poor Edkins’s reports in the year of my own captaincy. Also J. P. Jordan, another O.A., well known to me, has won the M.C.

I am delighted that the Old Man (Mr. A. H. Gilkes) has received the living of St. Mary Magdalene at Oxford. He could, I am sure, have never had an appointment more to his tastes barring, indeed, his mastership at his beloved Dulwich. As a headmaster he was a gigantic character; of that there can be no doubt whatever.

January 28th, 1917.

No news yet of my application for transfer. But people “in the know” tell me that it is only a question of time. The document having been approved and recommended by all the necessary authorities is, I presume, now wandering through the multifarious ramifications of the maze of Army offices, but I am told it will soon filter down. One thing that pleases me is an assurance that the A.S.C. authorities, whatever may have happened in the past, are not this time blocking my transfer. From your knowledge of my weaknesses, you will no doubt have guessed that I’m on pins these days the period of waiting for the result of an exam., even if you think you’ve passed, is always a trying one. It is especially so for me on account of my absurdly impatient temperament. I fear that leave is out of the question till the transfer is settled one way or the other.

The cold weather now prevalent must add yet a fresh discomfort to those that are being endured by our men in the trenches. I cannot recollect a cold spell of such severity continuing for so long a time. We had a heavy snowfall a fortnight back, and since then there has been incessant and exceptionally hard frost. The roads in places are wellnigh impassable owing to frozen snow. Going down one steep hill to-day in our motor-car we all but turned completely over, as at a curve in the road the car-wheels, instead of answering to the steering gear, skidded on the frozen surface, and the car swung completely round on its axis, finishing by facing the opposite way to that in which we were travelling. Where the roads are not very slippery they are as hard as iron. A curious result is that you have a thick dust raised over a snow-covered landscape and in bitterly cold weather!

I was much interested in the Balliol College pamphlet and the Master’s accompanying letter. Balliol appears to have done even more than its part in the War. Did you see that the Brakenbury Scholarship in History for 1916 was taken by a chap from Gresham School, Holt? I often wonder whether I shall ever go up to Oxford. Almost needless to say, to go there would be the crowning joy of my life, but I cannot help thinking that circumstances will render it impossible. Still, we will hope for the best. One thing I mean to do after the War is to learn Russian thoroughly and to visit Russia. I am not at all sure that travelling is not the best of all Universities. The great disadvantage of a ’Varsity is the insularity of mind which it is apt to breed. Its rigid observance of ancient customs, its cult of “form,” the fact that it is the almost exclusive monopoly of the rich, the aristocracy and the upper middle-class; above all, its contempt for the learning of modern times and studied disregard of modern languages all these features help to make the ’Varsity as insular as the most insular of all English national institutions. On the other hand, by its genuine intellectuality, by its cult of the beautiful and the abstract, by its scorn of the sordid business side of modern civilisation, by its enthusiasm for athletics and by its traditions of duty and of patriotism, the ’Varsity remains, to my mind, one of the most healthful influences in modern British life.

Talking of English insularity, it is curious to note how the Englishman makes his progress abroad. He is so insular that instead of learning the language and adopting the customs of the country he is in, he makes the indigenous population adopt his! He does not, for example, know much French, but he has evolved a sort of patois much nearer English than French that enables the inhabitants to understand him and comprehend what he wants.

I have recently been reading another of John Buchan’s, called “Greenmantle.” If you haven’t read it, get it. It is just as good as Buchan’s other books, rich in mystery and scintillating with adventure. It deals with this War and the experiences of Richard Hannay (whom you will recollect as the hero of the “Thirty-nine Steps,” and who has since become a Major and got wounded at Loos) in his efforts, eventually crowned with success, to crush a German plot this plot being the working up of a “Jehad,” or Holy War among the Mohammedans, and so provoking a rising of Islam against the British. A thoroughly live story, told with great spirit.

I have also read H. G. Wells’s war novel, “Mr. Britling Sees It Through.” It is undeniably clever, though not to my mind up to the level of Wells’s very best. It rather gives the impression in parts of having been written by the mile and then lengths cut off as required. He has one very good touch, the realisation of the impersonal and indiscriminate nature of the War: it claims as victims both Mr. Britling’s own son and the young German who had been living with them before the War. The book concludes with a letter from Britling to the German boy’s father, attempting to find some way out of the blackness. As usual with Wells, the best feature of the novel is the way in which he expresses the point of view of the average man. He has the trick of recording reflections in a sort of staccato style, with gaps here and there just the way that one does think. There is some rot in the book, but on the whole it is very good and well worth reading.

Recently I have been attending a Veterinary Course lectures and
practical demonstration; most fascinating it is, I can assure
you.

WITH THE TANK CORPS

On February 13, 1917, Paul Jones joined the M.G.C.H.B., in other words the Tank Corps. His joy at this transfer was unbounded. Nothing could be in sharper contrast than the letters he wrote after joining the Tank Corps and those penned during the preceding three months, when the enforced inactivity of the cavalry and the nature of his own routine work preyed on his spirits and made him exclaim with Ulysses:

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use,
As though to breathe were Life!

February 13th, 1917.

When I came in from my morning’s work yesterday what should I find but a telegram instructing me to report at the earliest possible moment to Headquarters, Heavy M.G.C., for duty on transfer! These things usually come with a rush after one has been kept waiting a long time in suspense. I spent the rest of the day in bringing my accounts and papers up to date, and this morning came across in the motor to my destination. Is it not splendid? My luck has never yet failed to stand me in good stead. I won’t deny, nevertheless, that it was a severe wrench parting from the old Cavalry Division after twenty months of service with it. I had formed many friendships there, among both officers and men, and it cost me many a pang to bid them good-bye. All partings from old associations are hard to bear even when the parting leads up, as in my case, to the fulfilment of one’s greatest ambition. My delight knows no bounds at my new appointment. I really am asking myself whether I am awake or not. It almost seems too good to be true.

I am writing this letter in my new mess which is in a Neissen hut. For the present I remain Lieutenant A.S.C. till the period of probation is past. But that’s no matter, for the acme of my military ambitions is now attained. My new messmates are almost all ex-infantry men, many of whom, most in fact, are here learning their new job. Strangely enough, I am the third Senior Lieutenant in the company, and in point of active service, with my twenty months in France, I stand well in front of almost all of them. The O.C. of the company, stroke of good luck for me, is an old Hussar officer and ex-member of the Cavalry Brigade which I have just quitted. It was a joy to meet him again. I was able to give him a lot of news about his old pals.

All the fellows in the new mess are amazed that I have been without leave since the beginning of May, 1916. I must not set my leave before my work, however. I have already started my new labours. Altogether I am in luck all round. I verily believe I am the luckiest man in the B.E.F. to-day. Congratulate me! You will be interested to know that an old Dulwich boy, Ambrose, to whom I gave 2nd XV Colours in my year of football captaincy, is in the same battalion, but I have not met him yet.

TO HIS BROTHER.

February 17th, 1917.

I am getting on splendidly. I can’t tell you how bucked I am with life. It was my third shot to get out of the “great Department,” and not only did I succeed in this, but I have obtained that which I had most desired. I had really hardly dared to hope that I should succeed in getting into the Tank Corps. There are a lot of Rugger men among the officers here, including an O.A., Ambrose, who was one of the best of the 2nd XV forwards in 1914. In our company is a splendid fellow called Hedderwick, who played for Loretto and was tried for Cambridge; and a man called Saillard, who was the Haileybury full-back in that match when they beat us at Haileybury by 32 to 12 in Evans’s year. You may recollect Saillard getting laid out in the second half, Haileybury continuing without a full-back with very sound judgment as it turned out, for this enabled them to play us off our legs in the scrum and control the game with eight forwards to seven, and we never got the ball to give to our eight outsides. To sum up, I am in most congenial society and enjoying life hugely.

Naturally, I am working pretty hard, learning my new job. I am determined to make good at it, and I have the conviction that, with hard work and concentration, a man with education behind him can succeed in pretty well anything that he likes. Leave may come in the near future, provided the authorities consider I have made sufficient progress in my new studies; but I have a lot to learn, and it is not my desire to go on leave before I have mastered at least the elements of my new job very much the reverse, in fact.

February 20th, 1917.

Am having a grand time up to my eyes in oil, grease and mud from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. I am finding my old hobby of engineering of the greatest value, and my enthusiasm for seeing “the wheels go round” has returned in all its old force. Even the gas-engine and dynamo of famous (or infamous) memory are proving most serviceable to me through the experience I acquired with them demonstrating again how useful the most recherche of ideas, occupations or hobbies may become. No knowledge is to be despised.

The only fly in the ointment is that an exam. is due for me in a week’s time or so as you know, impending exams. fill me with terror. I have such an accursedly active imagination that I find it impossible to banish from my head the thought, “What if I fail?” I’ve always been afflicted with this, though I am bound to say that when it came to the point it did not, as far as might be judged by results, affect my actual performances. But I am, nevertheless, in a chronic state of what the B.E.F. calls “wind up” on account of this exam. I am so eager to do well that the mere thought of failing is abhorrent. I am inclined to ascribe these feelings at bottom to egotism.

There is quite a number of South Welshmen in our lot out here, including some men from Llanelly. There are also a lot of Scotsmen among the officers, fellows of broad speech and dry humour to whom I am much drawn.

You haven’t hit on a book on some musical subject for me, have you? I would much like a work dealing with Wagner or Beethoven. It is music that I miss more than anything in the intellectual line. Shall we ever hear the “Ring” again, I wonder? Anyway, it was one of the supreme experiences of my life to have heard it conducted by Nikisch. I regard the “Ring” as one of the world’s artistic masterpieces. It is conceived on a scale of unparalleled grandeur, and must be thought of as an organised whole.

I miss the “Proms” and the Sunday Concerts, too both have done a
real national service in popularising the greatest music.

February 28th, 1917.

In the language of Tommy, I am “in the pink” and getting on first-rate. Am delighted to say I passed well in that examination, being marked “very good indeed.” I got more than 90 per cent. of marks. I never dared to hope for such success. It would be absurd to deny that I am hugely bucked at the result, but I had had a pretty strenuous training for the exam. I am still engaged in learning, but now in a different department, though of equal interest, and I am glad to say that no examination is involved this time.

Last Sunday we had a real first-rate game of Rugger not very scientific as far as passing and outside play were concerned, but a great struggle forward. My own side had a couple of splendid Scottish forwards against it, and I had a great deal of defence to do, falling on the ball, etc. The final was 6-3 against us, but one glaring offside try was allowed to our opponents accidentally, of course, as the referee’s view was unfortunately obstructed at the time. It was a grand game to play in, though I was not in the best of training one’s first game for fourteen months is usually apt to be a bit of a strain, and I hadn’t played since I turned out for the O.A.’s at Dulwich in December, 1915. It was simply great, worth living years for, to touch a Rugger ball again.

March 17th, 1917.

These days for me are crammed full of work, 8.30 A.M. to 6 or 7 P.M. as a general rule. I am enjoying life hugely, however. To me hard work has always been preferable to slack times, and I like going at high pressure. Besides, this is such a grand job that the work is a sheer pleasure. By Jove! if you only knew how much happier I am these days than in any period during the twenty odd months I had spent previously playing at soldiers in the “Grub Department.” It amazes me that I could have been so long contented with work like that of the A.S.C. Well, anyway, those days are over and done with, and a new and brighter era has been ushered in. As a rule, I am now almost always in an incredible state of grease and oil and grime, which, remembering my old propensities, you will know delights me. The old gas-engine at home was nothing to it. I have had to set aside a special suit for daily use, as even with overalls on there is not sufficient protection against grease, oil, petrol and mud. I cannot tell you how supremely happy I am in my work.

Ambrose returned to his company from a course of instruction last week, and he came across immediately to see me. We discussed old times and old friends with great gusto. There are two other Dulwich men in the battalion whom I never knew well, as they were fairly senior fellows when I was only a kid, though I distinctly remember both. Their names are Trimingham and Sewell. They were in what was in those days Treadgold’s House.

I am sending back by the same post a pair of spectacles which got broken recently. Will you please get them repaired? I still have four sound pairs, but I always like to keep up the set of five with which I started in the War.

The breaking of the great frost created appalling conditions on this countryside, which for some time was an absolute quagmire. Even now things are pretty bad, though the weather improves daily.

March 20th, 1917.

Well, the Boche has retreated on the Somme, as most people anticipated he would, though few imagined he would make such a considerable withdrawal. He is a cute customer, of that there is no doubt. He never does a thing without having a reason. Yet there have been occasions in the War when he has entirely misjudged the situation. Take Ypres and Verdun for example. This retirement on the Somme is clever, though it may tell on the morale of his men. On the other hand, the Boche relies, and always has relied, much more on discipline than on morale for keeping his army together. He has never developed esprit de corps as it has been developed in our army, or the French, but there’s no denying that his discipline is something pretty considerable. That discipline, as far as can be gauged, has as its foundation a very efficient system of N.C.O.’s. His officers are intelligent, but nothing to write home about, but his N.C.O.’s are unquestionably very good. I have myself witnessed their influence among gangs of prisoners we have taken.

It must necessarily come about in the course of a War that situations arise when esprit de corps is equivalent to, and even produces, discipline. That is where brother Boche fails to rise to the occasion. I am not of those who think the Boche a coward, but undoubtedly an unexpected situation very often plays the very deuce with both his courage and his organisation. In his plans he allows for most possibilities, but he is nonplussed when the situation does not turn out exactly as it should on paper. Again, man for man, he loses “guts” in tight corners, because of this same lack of initiative. It is perhaps a temperamental failing. There have been moments in this War when only his incapacity to deal with a suddenly-developed situation has stood between him and stupendous success. He has assumed, let us say, that by all the rules of War the enemy must have reserves available, and has therefore ceased his attack until such time as he could muster his forces to meet the counter-attack by these imagined reserve troops, when actually his enemy had no reserves at all. Conversely, he has assumed on many occasions that his enemy must, by all the rules of War, be battered into pulp or asphyxiated, and that he has only to advance over the bodies of his foes to win an overwhelming victory; yet somehow or other from out of the indescribable debris and havoc wrought by his artillery or gas, arise survivors who, though half-dead, yet have enough life and pluck to hold him back.

Take as illustrations either the second battle of Ypres or Verdun. In the first case, after the first surprise gas attack a rent about a mile and a half wide had been torn in the Allied line. Against a vast number of German troops there was opposed only one single division of what Bernhardi contemptuously termed “Colonial Militia,” namely, the Canadians. For quite a long time there were no other troops of ours (save a few oddments) in the vicinity. The Boche had five miles or so to get to “Wipers.” Of these he covered just about two, and even that ground was only what he gained in the first surprise of his gas attack. Between him and the Channel coast there still stretched a khaki line. The same sort of situation was repeated several times during the second battle of Ypres (though the odds were never so great as in these first April days), yet the result was always the same.

Take Verdun again. For me this prolonged battle has a strange fascination. There is something more terrible and primitive about it than about any other struggle of the War. It was a sort of death-grip between two antagonistic military conceptions.

(The remainder of this letter never came to hand.)

March 31st, 1917.

It must be a singular experience for our troops on the Somme to miss enemy artillery fire, trench mortars, grenades, etc., from the scheme of things. What a huge relief to the Infantry to have a pause from the eternal “Whew-w-w-w-Crash” of the high explosives! I fear, nevertheless, that the British infantrymen will soon resume acquaintance with them, for the War isn’t over by a long chalk yet. Meanwhile, however, the sight of an at present comparatively unblemished countryside must be a great joy to men sick of the howling wilderness created on the ground that has been contended for since July, 1916. I know those Somme battlefields every square yard of soil honeycombed with shell-holes, all traces of verdure vanished, trees reduced to withered skeletons, blasted forests, fragments of houses, with the poor human dead rotting all around. Verily a nightmare country.

You may have remarked in the last Alleynian a poem called the “Infantryman,” by Captain E. F. Clarke. It appeared first in Punch some time ago and has had a great vogue. When I read it first, before I knew who the author was, I was greatly taken with this poem. I now see from The Alleynian that it is the work of an O.A., a chap whom I held in high regard, namely, Eric Clarke, whom you cannot fail to remember as King Richard II in the Founder’s Day Play, 1913 his superb acting in that rôle was greatly admired. It was he who was to a large extent responsible for my undertaking the editorship of The Alleynian. He was my immediate predecessor in the job.

The poem appeals powerfully to me. To use the words of a Canadian poet, R. W. Service, “it hits me right.” It has a swing about it, it has ideas, it has atmosphere. Pervading it through and through is the atmosphere of this Western Front. I have often told you that I had yet to meet the man who could convey that atmosphere in story, book or article. Clarke’s poem (along with Bairnsfather’s pictures) is one of the very first pieces I have read that really gets this atmosphere. The verse is not particularly polished, but it has life and force. Its simplicity adds to its effectiveness. Such an expression as “the sodden khaki’s stench” lives in the memory, for it appeals directly to the soldier’s recollection of his experiences that odour the infantryman must have noticed dozens of times in the wet dawn, when he was waiting to go “over the top.” Clarke has undoubtedly made a name for himself by the poem. Decidedly he has lived up to the high reputation he had at school. It looks as if he will make a name in literature. .

These days I am tremendously busy and revelling in it, as the
work is so completely congenial. I am muddier and greasier than
at any other period of my existence, and gloriously happy withal.

A corporal in our Company lives in the Herne Hill district, and in civil life was a tram conductor for the L.C.C. on the Norwood section. He has been out here two years, and won the Military Medal for gallantry on the Somme. Very interesting to meet one of the “dim millions” from one’s own neighbourhood in this fashion, n’est ce pas?

In April Paul Jones, as a Tank Officer, took part in the battle of Arras.

April 24th, 1917.

I am splendidly well and enjoying life hugely. If my letters for the past three weeks have been few and far between, you must put it down to War activities. It would be ridiculous to try to conceal the fact that my movements of late have, to a certain extent, been connected with the great “stunt” now in progress. For me the past three weeks or so have been a period full of incident and rich in variety quite and by far the best period of my life up to date. There have been certain rotten incidents that have worried me at times; but, on the whole, I have been far happier during that period than at any other time since joining the Army. Thank goodness! I shall at length be able to hold up my head among other Dulwich men and not be forced to admit with shame that in this War I only played a safe, comfortable, luxurious part in the A.S.C. No! those wretched days are over and done with. Even now, I have a far easier time than thousands of fellows in the Infantry.

I have referred to certain rotten incidents. The worst of these was the death in action of one of my best friends in the Company. This chap was a young Scotsman named Tarbet. We had been thrown very much together and became warm friends. On April 9 Tarbet was killed by a sniper about 11 A.M. while out in the open reconnoitring the approach to the Boche second line. I came along to relieve him an hour later, and practically fell over his dead body a very bad moment, I assure you. Another of our section officers was wounded in the face about the same time by shrapnel. I myself had rather a close shave, as I was alongside another man at the time he was hit in the head by a shrapnel bullet. I scarcely realised the explosion until I saw the poor fellow wounded.

On the whole, that day was an absolute picnic. The only trouble was that the Boche ran back too fast in our particular sector for us to inflict all the damage on him that we would have liked to have done. Such, however, has not been the case everywhere since. He is fighting desperately hard now.

Two more O.A.’s killed in action Gerald Gill and Eric Clarke. Gill took his colours in cricket, gym, and football. His impersonation of M. Perrichon in the French play on Founder’s Day, 1913, was very clever and entertaining. I am also much grieved at Clarke’s death. He was shaping for a brilliant career. It’s just awful this sacrifice of the best of our young men.

TO HIS BROTHER.

April 29th, 1917.

Circumstances are making my letter-writing increasingly difficult. It is rather a case of “but that I am forbid I could a tale unfold,” etc. I suppose holidays are on just now. I want to tell you that I am confidently looking forward to your winning a great success in the forthcoming Matriculation. By Jove! it doesn’t seem such a long time since I was in for that exam. myself. In my day we were able to take it at the school, now I believe you have to go up to London University. Eheu fugaces!

The more I see of life the more convinced I am of the greatness of the old school. Wherever you meet a Dulwich man out here, you’ll find he bears a reputation for gallantry, for character, for hard work and for what may be termed “the public-school spirit” in its best form. Our Roll of Honour and the literally amazing list of decorations bear this out. Of my own old colleagues, there is not one who has not either been hit (alas! killed in many cases) or received some decoration, or both; and that, mark you, though we are not what is known as an “Army School” like Eton, Cheltenham, or Wellington. Ambrose, the O.A. in our battalion, has recently accomplished some wonderful things, and is sure to receive a high decoration. Yet one more up for the school!

Did you see that Scottie is now an Acting-Lieutenant-Colonel, with a D.S.O. and the M.C.? That is some achievement, if you like! C. N. Lowe, the famous footballer, has been wounded. He had transferred to the Flying Corps out of the A.S.C. Doherty, who used also to be in the “Grub Department,” has now got a Company in the Infantry. You see, it isn’t in the nature of a Dulwich man to be leading a life of ease when other men are fighting.

I have been having a great time of late. Work of surpassing interest, a certain amount of excitement, and a knowledge that one was more or less directly participating in the winning of the War what more can the heart of man desire? If only poor old Tarbet hadn’t been killed he was a dear pal of mine, there wouldn’t be a cloud on the horizon. Don’t let the Mater and Pater get the wind up about my personal safety. At present I am quite safe; besides, I have wonderful luck. I was only saved by a miracle from being blown into the air last September on the Somme. I may get home on leave in the near future.

May 4th, 1917.

I rejoice to say that Ambrose has received the D.S.O. for that achievement referred to in my last letter. He more than deserves it. He had a most terrible experience. The D.S.O. for a subaltern is one of the very highest honours that the Army has to bestow. We are all very bucked about it, especially the O.A. section of the battalion.

How anomalous the War has become the world’s great Land Power striving to strike its decisive blow at sea, while the great Sea Power is endeavouring to strike its decisive blow on land! This double paradox will give much food for reflection to future historians. I am coming to the conclusion that without a complete knowledge of the facts it is well-nigh impossible to derive accurate deductions from History. It seems to me you can make History prove anything. To understand History in all its significance, one must be familiar also with literature, languages and science.

Talking of science, do you see that some modern scientists are throwing doubt on the original theory of Evolution? They admit the possibility of the modification of species through natural selection, but they dispute the theory that any broad change takes place in the genera of organisms. They do not even admit the possibility of the atrophy, through long disuse, of organs of which the animal no longer has need. They are forced to admit that many species and genera have become extinct so much is proved by the skeletons of prehistoric beasts found from time to time under the earth’s surface. But what they dispute is that there is any connection between those beasts and living animals. They say, for instance, that as far back as we have records, we find the horse practically the same, organically speaking, as he is to-day. They cast doubt, that is, on the theory that the horse is descended from the pterodactyl.

It is an interesting point, though there appears to be no essential difference between this new school and the thoroughgoing evolutionists; for both admit the principle of the survival of the fittest. To me the new school’s conception seems to be grotesque. According to them, the world was originally full of an enormous number of animals, organisms and what not, of which some have up to date survived, and whose numbers will decrease until only a few certain types, or perhaps one certain type, will be left subsisting. That is a view that I cannot accept. But, of course, Nature has many checks on the propagation and the multiplication of species. Natural conditions do not permit of the existence of too many species or sub-species. But it is clear that there are types, call them genera, species, or what you will, that have, by virtue of some inherent fitness and flexibility of adaptation, survived and mastered other types.

The theory or principle of Natural Selection can also be applied to nations. As far back as we have any record, man was much the same sort of being as he is to-day. The genus, in fact, has not changed. It is now established that in the long distant past there was one great Aryan race in Central Asia, which has split up since then into the peoples and nations of modern Europe, India, Arabia, and so forth. Biologically speaking, these peoples have all some traits in common, but environment has wrought great changes and has created species. Between these species there are great differences, so great indeed that various of them are to-day engaged in a good old intertribal war.

But has the genus Man always borne the same sort of characteristics as those that distinguish him to-day? Or, on the other hand, is he descended from a kangaroo-rat through the long lineage of the pithecanthropus, the ape-man, the man-ape, and so forth? And why stop at the kangaroo-rat the first mammal to bring forth its young alive? Why not continue his lineage right back to the original bi-cellular organism protoplasm? If these are our humble beginnings, what a progression to Man, so “noble in reason, infinite in faculty”!

Speculations about the development of life are very fascinating. I hold very strongly to belief in the survival of the fittest. Accepting this theory, you can explain most of the apparent inconsistencies that exist in the world. But I must admit that there is at least a possibility that genera are not changed by environment, time or circumstances. Perhaps they exist until they become unfit, when they vanish. The genus may remain in existence as a permanency till it ceases to become fit to survive, but the species most certainly alters. The only point in dispute is, therefore: do genera become altered by environment, etc.? Or do they exist unaltered till they become unfit, when they just vanish from this sublunary scene? However this may be, the broad principle of natural selection seems to me to be unshakably established.

May 20th, 1917.

I was absolutely taken aback by the news of Felix Cohn’s death. It seems almost incredible to me, even at this moment. It was only a few days ago that we met out here. He had then been “over the top” and was in high spirits. He was a sincere fellow and played his part like a man. I do take off my hat to the Infantry. No one in England realises what we all owe to them; marvellous men they are. How they endure what they do, Heaven only knows. If you see Mr. Cohn, please express to him my deepest sympathy, or rather, send me his address and I will write to him.

We of the Tank Corps are having a pleasant and peaceful time in billets these days. Nature hereabouts is beginning to put on her best dress. It is some contrast between the vivid green foliage that one sees about here and the blasted trees and shell-shattered areas of the fighting zone. Only one thing indicating the living force of nature did I remark in that dreary countryside. This was the piping of a few birds now and again in the most unlikely places. Bar that, the battle zone is a blasted area, where the only difference between the seasons is noted by a change of temperature and the transformation of mud into dust. Meanwhile, I am having a very good time in billets; but I am looking forward eagerly to a real scrap with the Boche.

Thanks so much for the “Perfect Wagnerite.” It is a treat to read
about the “Ring” once more. I would give much to be able to hear
it again.

TO HIS BROTHER.

May 25th, 1917.

Just a line to wish you the best of luck in the Matric, and to express the hope that you will do really well. Put in all the work you can right up to within twenty-four hours of the start of the exam. and then take one day right off duty altogether. I am certain you will do us all infinite credit.

As to the Pater’s remark that my recent letters have lacked detail, this is mainly due to the Censorship regulations, which I personally like to observe in the spirit as well as in the letter. Besides, a careless remark may be misconstrued, and it is difficult to say one thing without disclosing others that ought not to be revealed. Then there is the other consideration, that if I write fully you may perhaps get the “wind up” about my personal safety.

As regards photographs of myself, the regulations as to the possession of cameras are very stringent, and I really haven’t the time or the inclination to go and get snapped by a civilian photographer out here. Again, entre nous, I regard photographs as trivialities above all, those abominations “photos from the Front.” A man who is really at the Front has neither time nor occasion to have photographs taken. No, if we must worry, let us worry first about the things that do matter.

I am frightfully sorry about the death of Felix Cohn. He was very cheerful when I saw him. We met twice in a certain large town which has of late figured prominently in the communiques. Our talk was of Dulwich, the cases of Roederwald and Gropius, of Wagner and music; and, of course, of the War itself. He had then been “over the top” once, on the same day that I was. Felix said that he had had an easy time, as his lot took about seven lines of trenches in an hour. He had done considerable work as a translator of German documents and in the examination of captured Germans. I feel sincere sympathy for Mr. Cohn, but there is little use in words of condolence in the case of such tragedies. It is the price of the game.

To a large extent, the Pater’s deductions about the work in Tanks on hot days are correct. Still, you can wear practically what you like when on duty, so one works in a shirt, shorts, puttees and boots. Although we are for the time being out of the battle line, I am really very busy; there is no slacking in the H.B.M.G.C.; but I am enjoying life hugely.

I manage to get a good deal of bathing these days, as there is a beautiful little river about a stone’s throw away from our billets. By the way, I hope you are continuing as keen as ever on your swimming. As to leave, it has again vanished into the limbo of futurity. I am not particularly sorry. Leave is such a fleeting joy. Just as one is beginning to get into the way of things at home one has to go back again to the Front. I would much prefer to get the War completely over than get leave. After all, in my present job I am not worried by monotony, and I find the work of absorbing interest. Moreover, I have many friends in this battalion, and, above all, in our own Company, which contains some really splendid fellows. What I miss most is music.

June 10th, 1917.

There are few opportunities of writing, and the busy period is likely to last for a space, so I fear my correspondence for some time to come will be but scanty. Our northern push has been a first-rate success. The simultaneous explosion of those mines on the Messines Ridge must have created a terrific din, though I myself never heard a sound, being at the time wrapped in the sleep of the just.

I do hope things are going well in the old school, but I fear that in existing conditions it is a difficult period for all public schools. Owing to the War, boys leave so much younger now, and you do not have fellows of eighteen and nineteen to set the tone; and at that age they have unquestionably a far greater sense of responsibility than at sixteen or seventeen, or, I imagine, in the first years at the ’Varsity after leaving school. Ian Hay says somewhere that a senior boy at a public school is a far more serious and responsible being than an undergraduate. As there are no senior boys, it is more than ever incumbent upon the masters to keep up the esprit de corps of the school, and to help maintain the old standards in work and games.

Talking of masters, I much liked that poem entitled the “House-Master” in a recent number of Punch. It is just the case of Kittermaster, Nightingale, or Scottie, isn’t it? I pray and trust that Dulwich in these difficult days will maintain its fine traditions. The welfare of the school is a very precious thing to me. I am inclined to think that my own six and a half years (1908-15) at Dulwich were about the time of its Augustan era. Among other things, this period included the year of the two Balliol scholars, the year of the crack “footer” team that never lost a match, and it was marked by a consistent average of first-class XV’s throughout. It produced five “blues” and internationals, and would have produced many other “blues,” and perhaps internationals, had it not been for the War Evans, for example, as half-back, and Franklin or either of the Gilligans as three-quarters. It was also the period of A. E. R. Gilligan, unquestionably the finest all-round public-school athlete of the past decade; the period of the gymnastic records; of the sports records; with a consistent average of scholarships and other educational distinctions, such as Reynolds’s B.A., direct from the school. Finally, this period was marked by a general spirit of keenness and industry, both in work and games, throughout the school. It was truly a glorious time. Oh, to have it all over again!

June 18th, 1917.

For over three weeks we have been working at exceptionally high pressure. Chief interest now centres in Flanders. Our branch did wonderfully well there, though the Boche apparently didn’t offer serious resistance anywhere. I was inexpressibly shocked to hear of the death of that chivalrous Irishman, Willie Redmond. The fact that he was carried off the battlefield in an Ulster ambulance was a most touching episode, and should go far to reconcile the mutually antagonistic Irish parties. Such an incident is one of the compensations of War few enough though they may be, Heaven knows! As it drags on, the War is becoming more and more mechanical. It is now like one enormous engine, with multitudinous cogwheels, each of which plays its part.

July 4th, 1917.

Looking at the Casualty Lists recording the death of so many brave men, and thinking of the grief in the homes, one feels that this War lies heavy on the world like a black horror. And yet I find myself ever more irresistibly (albeit wholly against my will and wishes) forced to the conclusion that War is a part of the order of things. Did you read the Russian Socialists’ manifesto on the War? While, on the one hand, they ascribed responsibility for it to the capitalist classes in the warring countries, yet they admitted that Russia’s withdrawal from the War would put the Boche section of capitalists in an advantageous position, and so decided to continue it. In other words, they admit that Democracy is powerless to avert War.

To my thinking, all History is made up of a series of movements like the swinging of a pendulum, from democracy (often via oligarchy) to imperialism, and from imperialism back to democracy. It seems to me that there is only one effective method of ensuring world-peace. It was the method of the Romans, by which one nation having fought its way to a position of undisputed and indisputable supremacy, imposed its will on the other nations of the world, and established the “Pax Romana.” Similar efforts made by great men have proved a disastrous failure in the long run, though after meeting with temporary success. Rome’s universal dominion did not endure long, and Napoleon’s domination of the Continent was very brief. England seems to have almost succeeded up to date in her attempt to establish a “Pax Romana,” for she gave order and peace to a large part of the world. England builded better than she knew, for many of the wise things she did were done under protest and from her devotion to the laissez-faire system. But this stupendous conflict shows that the “Pax Britannica” has not succeeded in averting wars.

I have heard it maintained that Karl Marx’s theory is the solution of the question, namely, to ignore national boundaries and establish what he called “class-consciousness” among the wage-earners of the world. That is to say, Marx proposed to replace national consciousness viz., the family, race or tribal consciousness that exists under the name of patriotism by class-consciousness viz., the consciousness of the workers in all countries that their interests are identical, the idea being that with the realisation of the unity of the workers wars would cease. To this theory there are, it seems to me, two fatal objections: (1) Even if this class-consciousness, or international solidarity of the workers, could be brought about, yet you would soon have the old division into capital and labour growing up again, through the ordinary laws of natural selection and because of the unequal capacity of different men to make their way in the world. (2) To my mind, the tribal instinct is much too strong to give way to a class-consciousness that ignores national boundaries and national rivalries.

Broadly speaking, the division of the world into nations is a natural division; and recent research all goes to confirm the theory that man never has “made good” as an individual. He begins his existence as a member of a family and of an association of families thrown together (a) by kinship of blood or likeness of type; (b) by environment; (c) by chance or circumstance (as a rule for the purpose of self-protection). It is these enlarged families that are what we call to-day nations. I cannot see that it would be possible to replace the great and, on the whole, ennobling sentiment of patriotism by a broad international trades-unionism, which is practically what Marx proposes. And given the world as it is and animal and human nature what they are, I don’t see how to prevent the interests of nations clashing. Ethically speaking, the trouble is that existence is a selfish thing. Stamp out competition which, when you think of it, is not very far removed from war on a small scale and experience shows that you stamp out the incentive to work and to progress. It is a melancholy conclusion to come to, but it’s better to look facts in the face than to shirk them.

I had the experience the other day of visiting a portion of the country where the old battle front used to be, for two and a half years, before the Boches withdrew to their Hindenburg line. This section of ground is miles from the present front line, in fact you can only hear the guns rumbling in the distance. This whole countryside is a ruined waste villages destroyed, weeds overgrowing everything; and no inhabitants except troops. It was strange to walk over the old trench systems and the broad green band between them (still thickly strewn with barbed wire) that used to be No Man’s Land. One thought of the Englishmen, Frenchmen and Germans who sat for so long in those trenches, peering at each other furtively from time to time, each doing all he could to kill the enemy, and from time to time raiding one another’s lines. I examined the deep, well-ordered Boche trenches. All dug-outs and practically everything of military value they had destroyed prior to their departure, but a few concrete and steel emplacements and snipers’ posts still remained beautifully made and all in commanding positions. The destruction of the villages, farms and lands by the Germans on their retirement was absolutely systematic not a house or a structure of any kind left standing. This area depressed one much more than the ordinary zone near the lines, because it was all so deathly empty and so weirdly silent, like the ghost of some prehistoric world. Up in the battle line you have at any rate life and activity but here nothing at all, simply destruction and a silent desert. I noticed in this area a French Military Cemetery with names dating back to 1914!

I am keeping splendidly well and am absolutely happy. By far the happiest time of my life since leaving school has been the past six months. My brother officers are a grand lot of fellows. Our own section of the Company is commanded by a young captain with the M.C., who has spent most of his life in the Colonies a first-rate man he is. There are four other officers besides myself, all of them splendid comrades, especially one who was along with me in the old days back in April and whom I am proud to consider a bosom pal a little Irishman, called O’Connor. He and I and poor old Jock Tarbet had always been the greatest of friends since my arrival in the Company. Alas! there are now only two of us left.

TO HIS BROTHER.

July 27th, 1917.

I was charmed to get a letter from you to-day and to hear that things are progressing so well. It certainly was bad luck for you in the diving competition. However, better luck next time! I was delighted to get the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News with the photographs of the Dulwich College O.T.C. How it does warm my heart to see even a photograph of the old College and its surroundings! I note that, barring Scottie and poor Kitter, there isn’t much change in the officers of the Corps. What excellent fellows they are! Give my love to them all.

Many thanks for the last parcel containing among many acceptable things a Gaboriau detective novel. I was very anxious to read this and compare it with good old Sherlock Holmes, whom I still worship as much as ever.

I have just completed two full continuous years of service in
this country. Well, cheer-oh, old boy! Best luck and much love to
you all!

P.S. Have you ever reflected on the fact that, despite the horrors of the war, it is at least a big thing? I mean to say that in it one is brought face to face with realities. The follies, selfishness, luxury and general pettiness of the vile commercial sort of existence led by nine-tenths of the people of the world in peace-time are replaced in war by a savagery that is at least more honest and outspoken. Look at it this way: in peace-time one just lives one’s own little life, engaged in trivialities, worrying about one’s own comfort, about money matters, and all that sort of thing just living for one’s own self. What a sordid life it is! In war, on the other hand, even if you do get killed you only anticipate the inevitable by a few years in any case, and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you have “pegged out” in the attempt to help your country. You have, in fact, realised an ideal, which, as far as I can see, you very rarely do in ordinary life. The reason is that ordinary life runs on a commercial and selfish basis; if you want to “get on,” as the saying is, you can’t keep your hands clean.

Personally, I often rejoice that the War has come my way. It has made me realise what a petty thing life is. I think that the War has given to everyone a chance to “get out of himself,” as I might say. Of course, the other side of the picture is bound to occur to the imagination. But there! I have never been one to take the more melancholy point of view when there’s a silver lining in the cloud.

Certainly, speaking for myself, I can say that I have never in all my life experienced such a wild exhilaration as on the commencement of a big stunt, like the last April one for example. The excitement for the last half-hour or so before it is like nothing on earth. The only thing that compares with it are the few minutes before the start of a big school match. Well, cheer-oh!

This was our son’s last letter. A few days later came a field postcard from him, bearing date July 30, the day before the battle in which he was killed. After that, silence a silence that will remain unbroken this side of the grave.