XIII

September 19th, 1916.

Dearest Father:

I'm writing you your birthday letter early, as I don't know how busy I
may be in the next week, nor how long this may take to reach you. You
know how much love I send you and how I would like to be with you. D'you
remember the birthday three years ago when we set the victrola going
outside your room door? Those were my high-jinks days when very many
things seemed possible. I'd rather be the person I am now than the
person I was then. Life was selfish though glorious.

Well, I've seen my first modern battlefield and am quite disillusioned
about the splendour of war. The splendour is all in the souls of the
men who creep through the squalor like vermin--it's in nothing
external. There was a chap here the other day who deserved the V.C. four
times over by running back through the Hun shell fire to bring news that
the infantry wanted more artillery support. I was observing for my
brigade in the forward station at the time. How he managed to live
through the ordeal nobody knows. But men laugh while they do these
things. It's fine.

A modern battlefield is the abomination of abominations. Imagine a vast
stretch of dead country, pitted with shell-holes as though it had been
mutilated with small-pox. There's not a leaf or a blade of grass in